6,786 Shares in Woodward, Inc. (NASDAQ:WWD) Bought by Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc.

Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Woodward, Inc. (NASDAQ:WWD) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor acquired 6,786 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $924,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in Woodward by 653.0% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 2,309,248 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $223,097,000 after buying an additional 2,002,572 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. raised its holdings in Woodward by 15.4% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 5,749,193 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $718,131,000 after buying an additional 768,984 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Woodward by 41.1% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,134,296 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $266,595,000 after buying an additional 621,559 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Woodward during the fourth quarter valued at about $23,812,000. Finally, Eaton Vance Management raised its holdings in Woodward by 63.4% during the first quarter. Eaton Vance Management now owns 580,570 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $72,519,000 after buying an additional 225,198 shares in the last quarter. 81.18% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on WWD. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Woodward from $168.00 to $177.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 30th. StockNews.com lowered Woodward from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 2nd. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on Woodward from $136.00 to $143.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 30th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Woodward from $151.00 to $156.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 4th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on Woodward from $159.00 to $201.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Woodward has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $158.22.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO Thomas G. Cromwell sold 38,700 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $141.98, for a total value of $5,494,626.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 11,833 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,680,049.34. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, COO Thomas G. Cromwell sold 38,700 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $141.98, for a total transaction of $5,494,626.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 11,833 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,680,049.34. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director John D. Cohn sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $138.86, for a total value of $208,290.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 20,531 shares in the company, valued at $2,850,934.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 51,200 shares of company stock worth $7,242,916. Company insiders own 1.12% of the company’s stock.

Woodward Stock Up 2.3 %

WWD stock opened at $148.89 on Wednesday. Woodward, Inc. has a twelve month low of $91.42 and a twelve month high of $160.79. The company has a market cap of $8.98 billion, a PE ratio of 31.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.77 and a beta of 1.36. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $145.96 and its 200 day simple moving average is $137.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.69, a current ratio of 2.65 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30.

Woodward (NASDAQ:WWD) last released its earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The technology company reported $1.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.12 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $786.73 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $750.13 million. Woodward had a return on equity of 15.26% and a net margin of 9.50%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.49 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Woodward, Inc. will post 5.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Woodward Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 5th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 20th were paid a $0.25 dividend. This is a positive change from Woodward’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.22. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 16th. Woodward’s dividend payout ratio is currently 21.10%.

About Woodward

Woodward, Inc designs, manufactures, and services control solutions for the aerospace and industrial markets worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Aerospace and Industrial. The Aerospace segment provides fuel pumps, metering units, actuators, air valves, specialty valves, fuel nozzles, and thrust reverser actuation systems for turbine engines and nacelles, and flight deck controls, actuators, servocontrols, motors, and sensors for aircraft.