Prepare Yourself for Liftoff: Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (HLT)

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT) stock jumped 1.80% on Thursday to $156.15 against a previous-day closing price of $153.39. With 1.56 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 1.79 million shares. During the session, the Lodging company that operates in wider Consumer Cyclical sector, reached to the highest price of $156.40 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $153.82. The 52-week range on HLT shows that it touched its highest point at $157.14 and its lowest point at $116.39 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $163.11. With its current market cap of 39.31 billion, HLT has annualized dividend of $0.60 while the current yield stands at 0.38%. Beta for the stock currently stands at 1.24.

Price Performance and Earnings:

Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of HLT was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 5.25%, but this was up by 1.62% over a month. Three-month performance surged to 8.78% while six-month performance rose 14.96%. The stock gained 19.69% in the past year, while it has gained 23.58% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for HLT yields 4.78 with Next year EPS estimates of 6.90. For the next quarter, that number is 1.66. This implies an EPS growth rate of 210.50% for this year and 13.93% for next year. EPS is expected to grow by 16.05% annually over the next five years; however, over the past five years, the company experienced an annual growth rate of 25.10%.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 264.00 million HLT shares are outstanding with a float of 256.56 million shares on hand for trading. On Aug 30, 2023, short shares totaled 4.85 million, which was 1.86% higher than short shares on Jul 30, 2023. In addition to Mr. Christopher J. Nassetta as the firm’s Pres, CEO & Director, Mr. Kevin J. Jacobs serves as its CFO & Pres of Global Devel.

Institutional Ownership:

Through their ownership of 97.23% of HLT’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company.

An Overview of Recent Financials:

Understanding a company as a customer does not mean you will understand it as an investor. The wise investor uses quantitative research to analyze metrics such as revenue, net income, and earnings. In its fiscal quarter reported on Jun 29, 2023, HLT reported revenue of $2.24B and operating income of $598.00M. The EBITDA in the recently reported quarter was $644.00M and diluted EPS was $1.32.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for HLT since 0 analysts follow the stock currently. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With HLT analysts setting a high price target of $182.00 and a low target of $145.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $164.40. Based on these targets, HLT could surge 16.55% to reach the target high and fall by -7.14% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 5.28% from current levels.

EPS: Estimates vs Actual

It is also common to use earnings estimates to evaluate a firm’s growth potential and to determine trading strategy.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded HLT stock several times over the past three months with 8 Buys and 0 Sells. In these transactions, 106 shares were bought while 0 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 58 while that of sell transactions has risen to 14 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 391,881 while 212,869 shares were sold.