Zacks Research Upgrades Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) to “Hold”

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Zacks Research from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report released on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other brokerages have also commented on NAVI. Barclays set a $9.00 price target on shares of Navient in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their target price on Navient from $15.00 to $9.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Wall Street Zen raised Navient from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 7th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d)” rating on shares of Navient in a research report on Friday. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $12.00 price objective on Navient in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and five have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Reduce” and a consensus target price of $11.63.

Navient Price Performance

NAVI stock opened at $8.18 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $9.23 and a 200 day moving average price of $11.39. The company has a quick ratio of 9.01, a current ratio of 9.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 16.94. The stock has a market cap of $777.84 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -9.98 and a beta of 1.33. Navient has a fifty-two week low of $7.86 and a fifty-two week high of $16.07.

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 27th. The credit services provider reported $0.02 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31 by ($0.29). The company had revenue of $137.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $144.25 million. Navient had a positive return on equity of 4.70% and a negative net margin of 2.47%.During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.24) EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Navient will post 1.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Navient

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC boosted its holdings in Navient by 790.1% during the third quarter. Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC now owns 1,590,339 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $20,913,000 after buying an additional 1,411,662 shares in the last quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd increased its holdings in Navient by 23.2% in the second quarter. Orbis Allan Gray Ltd now owns 2,848,718 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $40,167,000 after buying an additional 536,933 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its holdings in Navient by 37.8% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,543,796 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $20,069,000 after buying an additional 423,381 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Navient by 20.2% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,484,742 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $32,302,000 after acquiring an additional 418,161 shares during the period. Finally, Millennium Management LLC increased its stake in Navient by 70.0% in the 3rd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 888,186 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $11,680,000 after purchasing an additional 365,677 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.14% of the company’s stock.

Navient Company Profile

Navient Corporation (NASDAQ: NAVI) is a specialized provider of asset management and business processing solutions, with a primary focus on student loan servicing. Established in 2014 through the separation from Sallie Mae, Navient assumed responsibility for servicing federal and private education loans, positioning itself as one of the largest servicers of higher education debt in the United States.

The company’s core activities center on federal student loan servicing under contracts with the U.S.