Raymond James Financial Inc. Makes New Investment in Embecta Corp. (NASDAQ:EMBC)

Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in Embecta Corp. (NASDAQ:EMBC) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 319,516 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,598,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in EMBC. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Embecta by 175.1% during the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,216 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 774 shares in the last quarter. Quarry LP bought a new position in shares of Embecta during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Embecta during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $209,000. Intech Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Embecta during the third quarter valued at approximately $211,000. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB bought a new position in shares of Embecta during the third quarter valued at approximately $217,000. 93.83% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on EMBC. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Embecta from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $13.00 to $20.00 in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. BTIG Research upgraded shares of Embecta from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $26.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, November 27th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Embecta

In other Embecta news, Director Milton Mayo Morris sold 3,100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.38, for a total value of $50,778.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 36,133 shares in the company, valued at $591,858.54. This trade represents a 7.90 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.42% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Embecta Stock Down 3.1 %

Shares of EMBC opened at $12.82 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $745.28 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.78 and a beta of 1.27. Embecta Corp. has a twelve month low of $9.93 and a twelve month high of $21.48. The company has a 50 day moving average of $15.94 and a two-hundred day moving average of $16.37.

Embecta (NASDAQ:EMBC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The company reported $0.65 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.45 by $0.20. Embecta had a net margin of 5.25% and a negative return on equity of 19.22%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Embecta Corp. will post 2.85 EPS for the current year.

Embecta Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 28th were paid a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 28th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.68%. Embecta’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 60.00%.

Embecta Company Profile

Embecta Corp., a medical device company, focuses on the provision of various solutions to enhance the health and wellbeing of people living with diabetes. Its products include pen needles, syringes, and safety injection devices, as well as digital applications to assist people with managing patient's diabetes.