Veralto’s (VLTO) Outperform Rating Reiterated at BNP Paribas Exane

Veralto (NYSE:VLTO)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reiterated by BNP Paribas Exane in a report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $120.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $115.00. BNP Paribas Exane’s price target suggests a potential upside of 26.72% from the company’s previous close.

Other analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Veralto from $102.00 to $107.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Veralto from $111.00 to $114.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Veralto in a research note on Wednesday, June 24th. UBS Group reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $104.00 target price on shares of Veralto in a report on Thursday. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $111.00 target price on Veralto in a research report on Thursday. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Veralto currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $110.90.

Veralto Price Performance

Shares of VLTO stock traded down $4.13 on Thursday, reaching $94.69. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,055,461 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,101,915. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $88.30 and its 200-day simple moving average is $90.94. Veralto has a 1 year low of $80.03 and a 1 year high of $110.11. The company has a market capitalization of $23.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 0.63. The company has a current ratio of 1.48, a quick ratio of 1.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65.

Veralto (NYSE:VLTO) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 28th. The company reported $1.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.01 by $0.10. Veralto had a net margin of 17.35% and a return on equity of 35.09%. The company had revenue of $1.47 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.45 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.93 earnings per share. Veralto’s revenue was up 7.5% on a year-over-year basis. Veralto has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.350-4.430 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.060-1.090 EPS. Analysts forecast that Veralto will post 4.24 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Jennifer Honeycutt sold 7,097 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $95.00, for a total value of $674,215.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 124,085 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,788,075. This represents a 5.41% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders own 0.43% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of VLTO. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Veralto in the fourth quarter worth approximately $261,340,000. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its holdings in Veralto by 31.5% during the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 6,150,388 shares of the company’s stock valued at $543,817,000 after acquiring an additional 1,472,304 shares during the period. FIL Ltd grew its position in Veralto by 263.8% in the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 1,798,310 shares of the company’s stock valued at $179,435,000 after acquiring an additional 1,303,940 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position in Veralto by 86.1% in the 3rd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,157,211 shares of the company’s stock valued at $226,615,000 after acquiring an additional 997,778 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC increased its stake in Veralto by 115.2% in the first quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 1,681,786 shares of the company’s stock worth $148,704,000 after purchasing an additional 900,135 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.28% of the company’s stock.

About Veralto

Veralto Corporation provides water analytics, water treatment, marking and coding, and packaging and color services worldwide. It operates through two segments, Water Quality (WQ) and Product Quality & Innovation (PQI). The WQ segment offers precision instrumentation and water treatment technologies to measure, analyze, and treat water in residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, research, and natural resource applications through the Hach, Trojan Technologies, and ChemTreat brands. This segment provides water solutions, including chemical reagents, services, and digital solutions.