Legal & General Group Plc Sells 13,206 Shares of Leidos Holdings, Inc. $LDOS

Legal & General Group Plc trimmed its holdings in shares of Leidos Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:LDOS) by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 731,402 shares of the aerospace company’s stock after selling 13,206 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in Leidos were worth $75,312,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in Leidos during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $1,024,436,000. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Leidos by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,022,359 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $1,086,434,000 after acquiring an additional 217,141 shares in the last quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Leidos by 16,475.4% in the first quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. now owns 4,156,784 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $646,463,000 after acquiring an additional 4,131,706 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Leidos by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,538,488 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $636,097,000 after acquiring an additional 64,909 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of Leidos by 2.6% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,859,616 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $289,193,000 after acquiring an additional 47,542 shares during the last quarter. 76.12% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently issued reports on LDOS. Wells Fargo & Company set a $165.00 price target on Leidos in a research report on Monday, August 17th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on shares of Leidos from $205.00 to $193.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on shares of Leidos from $195.00 to $160.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 10th. BNP Paribas Exane lifted their target price on shares of Leidos from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of Leidos from $210.00 to $160.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and ten have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $162.93.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Noel B. Geer sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $140.66, for a total transaction of $1,406,600.00. Following the sale, the director owned 34,274 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,820,980.84. This trade represents a 22.59% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.77% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Leidos Stock Up 1.8%

LDOS stock opened at $139.85 on Friday. Leidos Holdings, Inc. has a 1-year low of $98.86 and a 1-year high of $205.77. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $119.23 and a 200-day moving average price of $139.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.13, a current ratio of 1.63 and a quick ratio of 1.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.05, a P/E/G ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 0.52.

Leidos (NYSE:LDOS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 4th. The aerospace company reported $3.26 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.35. Leidos had a return on equity of 30.81% and a net margin of 7.80%.The company had revenue of $4.56 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.44 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.21 earnings per share. Leidos’s revenue was up 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Leidos has set its FY 2026 guidance at 12.200-12.500 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Leidos Holdings, Inc. will post 12.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Leidos Dividend Announcement

The business 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 is Tuesday, September 15th. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. Leidos’s dividend payout ratio is currently 16.04%.

Leidos declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share buyback plan on Friday, July 31st that authorizes the company to buyback 20,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the aerospace company to buy shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

About Leidos

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.