Hawkins (NASDAQ:HWKN) Rating Lowered to “Hold” at Wall Street Zen

Hawkins (NASDAQ:HWKN) was downgraded by research analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued on Saturday.

Other analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. CJS Securities started coverage on Hawkins in a report on Tuesday, April 1st. They set a “market outperform” rating and a $125.00 price objective on the stock. BWS Financial reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $160.00 price target on shares of Hawkins in a report on Thursday, May 15th.

Hawkins Stock Performance

Shares of HWKN opened at $152.43 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $131.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $119.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.55 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 2.15. Hawkins has a 52-week low of $89.59 and a 52-week high of $153.05.

Hawkins (NASDAQ:HWKN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 14th. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.74 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $245.32 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $230.69 million. Hawkins had a return on equity of 18.93% and a net margin of 8.66%. Research analysts forecast that Hawkins will post 4 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Hawkins

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of HWKN. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Hawkins by 31.5% during the 1st quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. now owns 599,015 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $63,448,000 after purchasing an additional 143,425 shares during the last quarter. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. increased its position in shares of Hawkins by 37.6% during the 1st quarter. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. now owns 350,722 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $37,148,000 after purchasing an additional 95,885 shares during the last quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of Hawkins during the 4th quarter valued at about $42,466,000. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in shares of Hawkins by 16.1% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 235,096 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $28,839,000 after purchasing an additional 32,670 shares during the last quarter. Finally, GW&K Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Hawkins by 3.2% during the 1st quarter. GW&K Investment Management LLC now owns 220,327 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $23,337,000 after purchasing an additional 6,832 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 69.71% of the company’s stock.

About Hawkins

Hawkins, Inc operates as a specialty chemical and ingredients company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Industrial, Water Treatment, and Health and Nutrition. The Industrial segment offers industrial chemicals, products, and services to agriculture, chemical processing, electronics, energy, food, pharmaceutical, and plating industries.