Royal Bank of Canada Has $32.80 Million Holdings in Leidos Holdings, Inc. $LDOS

Royal Bank of Canada lessened its position in shares of Leidos Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:LDOS) by 3.3% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 210,880 shares of the aerospace company’s stock after selling 7,274 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada’s holdings in Leidos were worth $32,796,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in LDOS. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Leidos by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,022,359 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $1,086,434,000 after purchasing an additional 217,141 shares during the last quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in Leidos by 16,475.4% in the 1st quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. now owns 4,156,784 shares of the aerospace company’s stock valued at $646,463,000 after buying an additional 4,131,706 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Leidos by 1.9% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,538,488 shares of the aerospace company’s stock valued at $636,097,000 after buying an additional 64,909 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in Leidos by 2.6% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,859,616 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $289,193,000 after buying an additional 47,542 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in Leidos during the 4th quarter worth $318,839,000. Institutional investors own 76.12% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Leidos from $178.00 to $138.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of Leidos from $210.00 to $160.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 13th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Leidos from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Leidos from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Monday, June 8th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Leidos from $140.00 to $110.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $163.80.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Gary Stephen May sold 1,484 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $132.75, for a total value of $197,001.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 10,137 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,345,686.75. This represents a 12.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.77% of the company’s stock.

Leidos Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:LDOS opened at $118.80 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $113.23 and its 200 day simple moving average is $145.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.40 and a quick ratio of 1.29. Leidos Holdings, Inc. has a 1 year low of $98.86 and a 1 year high of $205.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.69 and a beta of 0.54.

Leidos (NYSE:LDOS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The aerospace company reported $3.13 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.88 by $0.25. The company had revenue of $4.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.28 billion. Leidos had a return on equity of 31.92% and a net margin of 8.15%.Leidos’s revenue was up 3.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.97 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Leidos Holdings, Inc. will post 12.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Leidos Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.43 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 15th. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.4%. Leidos’s payout ratio is presently 15.75%.

Leidos declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Friday, July 31st that authorizes the company to buyback 20,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the aerospace company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Leidos Profile

Leidos is an American technology and engineering company that provides services and solutions to government and commercial customers, with a strong focus on national security, defense, intelligence, and civil government markets. The company delivers systems integration, engineering, cybersecurity, software development, data analytics, cloud migration and managed IT services, as well as mission support for complex programs. Leidos’ work spans areas such as C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), secure communications, sensors and systems engineering, and health IT solutions for public-sector healthcare programs.

Leidos traces its corporate roots to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and emerged as an independent, publicly traded company following a corporate separation in 2013.