Itau Unibanco (NYSE:ITUB) Stock Rating Raised to “Hold” at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Itau Unibanco (NYSE:ITUB) to a hold rating in a research report sent to investors on Saturday,Wall Street Zen reports.

A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on ITUB. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $10.50 target price (up from $9.30) on shares of Itau Unibanco in a research report on Friday, October 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Itau Unibanco from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Itau Unibanco from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 8th. Finally, HSBC downgraded Itau Unibanco from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $9.10 target price for the company. in a research note on Thursday, October 8th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $9.87.

Itau Unibanco Price Performance

ITUB stock opened at $9.45 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.44. The firm has a market cap of $104.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.36, a PEG ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 0.50. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $8.31 and its 200 day simple moving average is $8.29. Itau Unibanco has a 12-month low of $6.63 and a 12-month high of $10.20.

Itau Unibanco (NYSE:ITUB) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The bank reported $0.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.22 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $9.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.29 billion. Itau Unibanco had a net margin of 26.41% and a return on equity of 21.40%. On average, analysts expect that Itau Unibanco will post 0.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Itau Unibanco

In other news, insider Vanzo Orestes sold 74,643 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $8.38, for a total transaction of $625,508.34. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 933,371 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,821,648.98. This represents a 7.40% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.61% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Itau Unibanco

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Bank of America Corp DE increased its stake in Itau Unibanco by 111.9% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 22,293,618 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $182,139,000 after purchasing an additional 11,771,394 shares in the last quarter. Carmignac Gestion lifted its stake in shares of Itau Unibanco by 41.6% in the second quarter. Carmignac Gestion now owns 12,219,314 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $99,832,000 after buying an additional 3,589,092 shares in the last quarter. NS Partners Ltd bought a new position in shares of Itau Unibanco in the second quarter valued at $17,019,000. Hsbc Holdings PLC lifted its stake in shares of Itau Unibanco by 32.4% in the first quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 6,579,735 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $55,088,000 after buying an additional 1,611,094 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Amundi grew its holdings in shares of Itau Unibanco by 32.1% during the second quarter. Amundi now owns 5,286,501 shares of the bank’s stock valued at $43,191,000 after buying an additional 1,283,503 shares during the last quarter.

Itau Unibanco Company Profile

Itaú Unibanco Holding SA is a financial services company headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil, and one of the largest banking groups in Latin America. The company provides banking and financial products to individuals, small and midsize businesses, large corporations and institutional clients through digital channels and a network of branches and service locations.

Its offerings include checking and savings accounts, consumer and commercial lending, mortgages, credit cards, insurance, investment products, asset management, foreign exchange and payment services.