Investors Getting Picky When It Comes To Buying Discover Financial Services (DFS)

Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) does about 1.57M shares in volume on a normal day but saw 1191519 shares change hands in the recent trading day. The company now has a market cap of 45.48B USD. Its current market price is $179.22, marking an increase of 1.08% compared to the previous close of $177.30. The 52 week high reached by this stock is $188.26 whilst the lowest price level in 52 weeks is $96.46. The script in recent trading has seen the stock touch a high of $161 and a low of $119.

Discover Financial Services (DFS) has a 20-day trading average at $177.67 and the current price is -4.80% off the 52-week high compared with 85.81% distance from its 52-week low. The 50-day simple moving average of the closing price is $159.83 and its 200-day simple moving average is $136.28. If we look at the stock’s price movements over the week, volatility stands at 2.03%, which increases to 2.23% over 1 month. It is also key to look at other market indicators of price movement for the stock, where we see that the relative strength index (RSI) is at 61.31 to suggest the stock is neutral.

12 analysts observing the Discover Financial Services (DFS) stock have set the 12-month price targets for the company’s shares at between $119 and $161. The consensus objective for the share price is $174.83, suggesting that the stock has a potential downside of -2.51% over the period. The median price target is -31.78% away from the current levels at $136.

FactSet Research has provided data showing that 12 brokerages have issued ratings for the stock. 0 analysts have rated it as a sell, while 0 advise that it is a overweight. 7 analysts have rated it as a buy and 5 have advised that investors hold their positions. The consensus recommendation rating is Buy and Wall Street’s advice is for investors to Moderate Buy the stock.

Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to “Overweight” from Equal-Weight on February 08, 2024 at a price target of $105-$133. HSBC Securities downgraded its price target at $121-$107.

The current price level is 0.87%, 12.13%, and 31.51% away from its SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200 respectively, with the DFS price moving above the 50-day SMA on current market day. Discover Financial Services (DFS) stock is down -1.76% over the week and -1.82% over the past month. Its price is 59.45% year-to-date and 77.97% over the past year.

The company’s next earnings report forecasts estimating quarterly EPS at 3.23 and 14.12 for whole year. Expected sales for next quarter are $4.16B, which analysts say will come at $17.48B for the current fiscal year and next year at $16.85B. In addition, estimates put the company’s current quarterly revenue at an average of $4.38B.

Its 12-month price target is $136. To reach the target analysts have set, the stock logically needs to shrink -2.51 percent from here. Of course, the average price target is just what the average analysts believe a stock will be worth in the next 52 weeks, and is only one metric. There are analysts with lower targets than the average, including one bearish Wall Street research firm advocating investors to wait for the price to pull back to $119, given the recent momentum. And then, on the bullish side of things, one analyst is expecting the stock to peak at $161.

Outstanding shares total 251.00M with insiders holding 0.58% of the shares and institutional holders owning 86.41% of the company’s common stock. The company has a return on investment of 8.88% and return on equity of 20.17%. The price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) amounts to 14.46 while the forward price to earnings ratio is 13.96. The beta has a value of 1.45. Price to book ratio is 2.61 and price to sales ratio is 1.96.