Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc (NASDAQ: KTOS) stock jumped 2.68% on Monday to $19.18 against a previous-day closing price of $18.68. With 1.16 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained heavier than its average volume of 1.0 million shares. During the session, the Aerospace & Defense company that operates in wider Industrials sector, reached to the highest price of $19.33 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $18.62. The 52-week range on KTOS shows that it touched its highest point at $19.02 and its lowest point at $8.90 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $19.45. Beta for the stock currently stands at 0.73.
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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 KTOS was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 5.91%, but this was up by 11.90% over a month. Three-month performance surged to 25.77% while six-month performance rose 36.32%. The stock gained 100.42% in the past year, while it has gained 85.85% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for KTOS yields -0.15 with Next year EPS estimates of 0.46. For the next quarter, that number is 0.09. This implies an EPS growth rate of 15.84% for this year and 27.85% for next year. EPS is expected to grow by 2.00% annually over the next five years; however, over the past five years, the company experienced an annual growth rate of 9.40%.
Float and Shares Shorts:
At present, 128.94 million KTOS shares are outstanding with a float of 126.25 million shares on hand for trading. On Oct 30, 2023, short shares totaled 3.35 million, which was 2.60% higher than short shares on Sep 28, 2023. In addition to Mr. Eric M. DeMarco as the firm’s CEO, President & Director, Ms. Deanna Hom Lund serves as its Executive VP, CFO & Director.
Institutional Ownership:
Through their ownership of 86.68% of KTOS’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company. Other institutions hold 49.38% of KTOS, in contrast to 36.10% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 2.93%. As the largest shareholder in KTOS with 9.10% of the stake, The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds 11,725,922 shares worth 11,725,922. A second-largest stockholder of KTOS, BlackRock Fund Advisors, holds 10,048,560 shares, controlling over 7.79% of the firm’s shares. ARK Investment Management LLC is the third largest shareholder in KTOS, holding 6,265,604 shares or 4.86% stake. With a 3.63% stake in KTOS, the ARK Autonomous Technology & Robot is the largest stakeholder. A total of 4,678,470 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, which owns about 3.11% of KTOS stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 4,012,225 shares valued at 68.41 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund holds 2.56% of the stake in KTOS, owning 3,301,188 shares worth 56.29 million.
Analysts Ratings:
Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for KTOS 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 KTOS analysts setting a high price target of $22.00 and a low target of $15.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $19.45. Based on these targets, KTOS could surge 14.7% to reach the target high and fall by -21.79% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 1.41% from current levels.
Summary of Insider Activity:
Insiders traded KTOS stock several times over the past three months with 0 Buys and 4 Sells. In these transactions, 0 shares were bought while 16,000 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 47 while that of sell transactions has risen to 82 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 524,333 while 531,742 shares were sold.
