Hancock Whitney (NASDAQ:HWC) Stock Rating Lowered by Autonomous Res

Hancock Whitney (NASDAQ:HWC) was downgraded by equities researchers at Autonomous Res from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report issued on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other brokerages have also recently commented on HWC. DA Davidson boosted their price objective on shares of Hancock Whitney from $79.00 to $86.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, May 18th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Hancock Whitney from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 9th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Hancock Whitney from a “buy (b)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Monday, May 11th. Hovde Group lowered shares of Hancock Whitney from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $74.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price target on shares of Hancock Whitney from $80.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, May 18th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Hancock Whitney has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $79.25.

Hancock Whitney Stock Performance

Shares of HWC opened at $75.66 on Tuesday. Hancock Whitney has a 52-week low of $54.05 and a 52-week high of $76.38. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $69.04 and its 200 day simple moving average is $67.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a current ratio of 0.81. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.54 and a beta of 0.94.

Hancock Whitney (NASDAQ:HWC) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 21st. The company reported $1.52 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.48 by $0.04. Hancock Whitney had a return on equity of 11.20% and a net margin of 21.34%.The business had revenue of $393.64 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $400.01 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.38 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 19.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Hancock Whitney will post 6.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Hancock Whitney

In other Hancock Whitney news, Director Christine L. Pickering sold 417 shares of Hancock Whitney stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.16, for a total transaction of $28,005.72. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 25,066 shares in the company, valued at $1,683,432.56. The trade was a 1.64% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.92% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Hancock Whitney

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in HWC. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Hancock Whitney by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,790,954 shares of the company’s stock valued at $304,652,000 after buying an additional 21,655 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in Hancock Whitney by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,521,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $287,935,000 after acquiring an additional 126,367 shares in the last quarter. Channing Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Hancock Whitney in the fourth quarter worth $80,246,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its stake in Hancock Whitney by 21.4% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 920,152 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,595,000 after acquiring an additional 162,482 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS Group AG increased its stake in Hancock Whitney by 134.3% in the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 909,460 shares of the company’s stock valued at $56,941,000 after acquiring an additional 521,261 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 81.22% of the company’s stock.

Hancock Whitney Company Profile

Hancock Whitney Corporation (NASDAQ: HWC) is a regional financial services company headquartered in Gulfport, Mississippi. The firm was established in April 2019 through the merger of Hancock Holding Company and Whitney Holding Corporation, each of which traced its roots to the late 19th century. This combination created one of the largest bank holding companies in the Gulf South region, with a network of branches serving both urban and rural communities.

The company’s core business activities include commercial banking, retail banking and wealth management services.