A Look at Prudential Financial Inc. (PRU) Shares in the Recent Past Indicates Growth

Prudential Financial Inc. (NYSE: PRU) stock fell -1.54% on Monday to $94.28 against a previous-day closing price of $95.75. With 1.16 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 1.46 million shares. During the session, the Insurance – Life company that operates in wider Financial sector, reached to the highest price of $94.65 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $93.32. The 52-week range on PRU shows that it touched its highest point at $108.83 and its lowest point at $75.37 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $100.93. With its current market cap of 34.04 billion, PRU has annualized dividend of $5.00 while the current yield stands at 5.30%. Beta for the stock currently stands at 1.37.

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 PRU was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 3.04%, but this was up by 4.19% over a month. Three-month performance surged to 4.50% while six-month performance rose 14.98%. The stock lost -11.71% in the past year, while it has lost -5.21% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for PRU yields 1.55 with Next year EPS estimates of 13.31. For the next quarter, that number is 2.73. This implies an EPS growth rate of 24.34% for this year and 13.14% for next year.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 365.96 million PRU shares are outstanding with a float of 360.37 million shares on hand for trading. On Oct 30, 2023, short shares totaled 4.7 million, which was 1.30% higher than short shares on Sep 28, 2023. In addition to Mr. Charles Frederick Lowrey Jr. as the firm’s Chairman, CEO & President, Mr. Robert Michael Falzon CFA serves as its Executive Vice Chairman.

Institutional Ownership:

Through their ownership of 59.92% of PRU’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company. Other institutions hold 30.32% of PRU, in contrast to 26.52% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 0.74%. As the largest shareholder in PRU with 9.79% of the stake, The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds 35,553,833 shares worth 35,553,833. A second-largest stockholder of PRU, BlackRock Fund Advisors, holds 21,690,731 shares, controlling over 5.98% of the firm’s shares. SSgA Funds Management, Inc. is the third largest shareholder in PRU, holding 16,382,990 shares or 4.51% stake. With a 3.13% stake in PRU, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is the largest stakeholder. A total of 11,356,108 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which owns about 2.41% of PRU stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 8,762,494 shares valued at 801.24 million. Fidelity 500 Index Fund holds 1.15% of the stake in PRU, owning 4,169,568 shares worth 381.27 million.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for PRU 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 PRU analysts setting a high price target of $125.00 and a low target of $87.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $100.93. Based on these targets, PRU could surge 32.58% to reach the target high and fall by -7.72% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 7.05% from current levels.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded PRU 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 39 while that of sell transactions has risen to 43 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 245,309 while 132,685 shares were sold.