MJP Associates Inc. ADV Boosts Stake in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

MJP Associates Inc. ADV increased its stake in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 7.1% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 1,410 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 94 shares during the period. MJP Associates Inc. ADV’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $280,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Ecolab by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,877,417 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,875,434,000 after acquiring an additional 387,545 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Ecolab by 1.3% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 11,229,633 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,864,760,000 after purchasing an additional 141,180 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its position in shares of Ecolab by 58.0% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,510,224 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $802,069,000 after purchasing an additional 2,023,685 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Ecolab by 1.4% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,611,872 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $761,451,000 after buying an additional 64,844 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada grew its holdings in Ecolab by 4.0% during the 2nd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 3,730,373 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $696,424,000 after buying an additional 144,420 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently commented on ECL. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Ecolab from $184.00 to $232.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 14th. Raymond James assumed coverage on shares of Ecolab in a research report on Thursday, November 30th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $210.00 price objective for the company. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Ecolab from $220.00 to $237.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Seaport Res Ptn downgraded Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Mizuho raised their price objective on Ecolab from $210.00 to $216.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ecolab presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $222.19.

Ecolab Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of ECL traded down $0.86 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $230.90. The stock had a trading volume of 819,493 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,226,363. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $215.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $193.38. The firm has a market cap of $66.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.66 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. Ecolab Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $156.72 and a fifty-two week high of $231.86.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $0.01. Ecolab had a return on equity of 19.36% and a net margin of 8.96%. The company had revenue of $3.94 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.92 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.27 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.42 EPS for the current year.

Ecolab Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 19th will be issued a $0.57 dividend. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.99%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 18th. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio is presently 47.60%.

Ecolab Company Profile

Ecolab Inc provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Global Industrial; Global Institutional & Specialty; and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries.