In the latest trading session, 2.48 million Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) shares changed hands as the company’s beta touched 0.83. With the company’s most recent per share price at $10.73 changing hands around $0.35 or 3.42% at last look, the market valuation stands at $3.63B. WU’s current price is a discount, trading about -32.25% off its 52-week high of $14.19. The share price had its 52-week low at $10.04, which suggests the last value was 6.43% up since then. When we look at Western Union Company’s average trading volume, we note the 10-day average is 5.56 million shares, with the 3-month average coming to 4.81 million.
Analysts gave the Western Union Company (WU) stock a consensus recommendation rating of Hold, calculated at a mean rating of 3.55. If we narrow down to specifics, the data shows that 3 out of 10 analysts rate the stock as a Sell, with a further 0 assigning it an Overweight rating. Of the remaining, 5 recommended WU as a Hold, 2 felt it is a Buy and 0 rated the stock as Underweight. Western Union Company’s EPS for the current quarter is expected to be 0.42.
Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) trade information
Instantly WU is in green as seen in intraday trades today. With action 3.82%, the performance over the past five days has been green. The company’s shares are showing year-to-date upside of 1.27%, with the 5-day performance at 3.82% in the green. However, in the 30-day time frame, Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) is 2.34% up. Looking at the short shares, we see there were 22.12 million shares sold at short interest cover period of 4.39 days.
The consensus price target for the stock as assigned by Wall Street analysts is 18, meaning bulls need an upside of 40.39% from its recent market value. According to analyst projections, WU’s forecast low is 11 with 25 as the target high. To hit the forecast high, the stock’s price needs a -132.99% plunge from its current level, while the stock would need to soar -2.52% for it to hit the projected low.
Western Union Company (WU) estimates and forecasts
Data shows that the Western Union Company share is performing relatively much not better than most of its peers within the same industry. As can be gleaned from the statistics, the company’s share value shot -5.42% over the past 6 months, a 5.17% in annual growth rate that is considerably lower than the industry average of 21.80%. Year-over-year growth is forecast to reach -1.26% down from the last financial year.
Consensus estimates given by 12 financial analysts project the company’s revenue in the current quarter to hit an average of 1.01B. 12 analysts are of the opinion that Western Union Company’s revenue for the current quarter will be 1.05B. The company’s revenue for the corresponding quarters a year ago was 1.05B and 1.07B respectively. According to analysts, the company will likely register a growth in its current quarter sales, forecast at -4.18%. The estimates for the next quarter sales put growth at -1.93%.
Looking at the company’s year-on-year earnings, data shows that the past 5-year has an earnings growth rate of -2.13%. The 2025 estimates are for Western Union Company earnings to increase by 3.14%, but the outlook for the next 5-year period is at 4.34% per year.
WU Dividends
Western Union Company is expected to release its next quarterly earnings report in March. The 8.76% annual yield figure for the share gives it an annual dividend of 0.94. It is important to note, however, that the 8.76% dividend yield ratio should serve as a guide only, as you should also take into consideration many other aspects of a company’s operations and fundamentals before making any investment decision. During the past 5 years, the average dividend yield was 6.04 per year.
Western Union Company (NYSE:WU)’s Major holders
If we look at who the major shareholders are, we find that insiders hold 0.30% of Western Union Company shares while 92.53% of the shares are in the hands of institutional holders. The share float percentage for the stock currently stands at 92.81%. There are 92.53% institutions holding the Western Union Company stock share, with VANGUARD GROUP INC the top institutional holder. As of 2024-06-30, the company held 11.209% of the shares, roughly 38.6 million WU shares worth $471.74 million.
BLACKROCK INC. holds the second largest percentage of outstanding shares, with 9.8379% or 33.88 million shares worth $414.03 million as of 2024-06-30.
Among Mutual Funds, the top two as of Sep 30, 2024 were Price (T.Rowe) Mid-Cap Value Fund and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. With 13.47 shares estimated at $144.03 million under it, the former controlled 3.99% of total outstanding shares. On the other hand, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund held about 3.15% of the shares, roughly 10.63 shares worth around $113.67 million.
