Its Stock Has Paid Off Big Time For Leslies Inc

Leslies Inc (NASDAQ: LESL) stock jumped 6.69% on Friday to $5.74 against a previous-day closing price of $5.38. With 3.1 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 3.55 million shares. During the session, the Specialty Retail company that operates in wider Consumer Cyclical sector, reached to the highest price of $5.76 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $5.42. The 52-week range on LESL shows that it touched its highest point at $17.12 and its lowest point at $4.39 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $7.72. Beta for the stock currently stands at 0.81.

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 LESL was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 23.97%, but this was up by 4.94% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -13.29% while six-month performance fell -43.17%. The stock lost -64.52% in the past year, while it has lost -52.99% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for LESL yields 0.37 with Next year EPS estimates of 0.46. For the next quarter, that number is 0.16. This implies an EPS growth rate of -68.67% for this year and 54.49% for next year. EPS is expected to grow by 9.70% annually over the next five years; however, over the past five years, the company experienced an annual growth rate of 74.66%.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 183.48 million LESL shares are outstanding with a float of 177.11 million shares on hand for trading. On Oct 30, 2023, short shares totaled 22.32 million, which was 12.13% higher than short shares on Sep 28, 2023. In addition to Mr. Michael R. Egeck as the firm’s CEO & Director, Mr. Brad A. Gazaway serves as its Chief Legal, Real Estate & Sustainability Officer and Corporate Secretary.

Institutional Ownership:

Other institutions hold 97.27% of LESL, in contrast to 65.23% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 51.50%. As the largest shareholder in LESL with 13.91% of the stake, BlackRock Fund Advisors holds 25,586,600 shares worth 25,586,600. A second-largest stockholder of LESL, Ariel Investments LLC, holds 24,987,417 shares, controlling over 13.58% of the firm’s shares. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the third largest shareholder in LESL, holding 18,299,006 shares or 9.95% stake. With a 6.75% stake in LESL, the iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF is the largest stakeholder. A total of 12,422,369 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Ariel Fund, which owns about 6.23% of LESL stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 11,465,501 shares valued at 56.64 million. Janus Henderson Triton Fund holds 3.24% of the stake in LESL, owning 5,962,361 shares worth 29.45 million.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for LESL 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 LESL analysts setting a high price target of $12.00 and a low target of $6.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $7.72. Based on these targets, LESL could surge 109.06% to reach the target high and rise by 4.53% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 34.49% from current levels.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded LESL stock several times over the past three months with 0 Buys and 0 Sells. In these transactions, 0 shares were bought while 0 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 18 while that of sell transactions has risen to 7 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 646,635 while 9,541,854 shares were sold.