Hershey Company (NYSE:HSY) does about 2.00M shares in volume on a normal day but saw 2238844 shares change hands in the recent trading day. The company now has a market cap of 35.89B USD. Its current market price is $178.20, marking a decrease of -2.68% compared to the previous close of $183.10. The 52 week high reached by this stock is $211.92 whilst the lowest price level in 52 weeks is $168.16. The script in recent trading has seen the stock touch a high of $202 and a low of $163.
Hershey Company (HSY) has a 20-day trading average at $177.52 and the current price is -15.91% off the 52-week high compared with 5.97% distance from its 52-week low. The 50-day simple moving average of the closing price is $180.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $190.48. If we look at the stock’s price movements over the week, volatility stands at 4.26%, which decreases to 3.68% 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 48.68 to suggest the stock is neutral.
18 analysts observing the Hershey Company (HSY) stock have set the 12-month price targets for the company’s shares at between $163 and $202. The consensus objective for the share price is $181.09, suggesting that the stock has a potential upside of 1.6% over the period. The median price target is -5.76% away from the current levels at $168.5.
FactSet Research has provided data showing that 18 brokerages have issued ratings for the stock. 0 analysts have rated it as a sell, while 0 advise that it is a overweight. 10 analysts have rated it as a buy and 8 have advised that investors hold their positions. The consensus recommendation rating is Buy and Wall Street’s advice is for investors to Hold the stock.
The company shares received a number of brokerage firm price updates over the past month, with the latest being on December 12, 2024 when BofA Securities resumed the stock to “Neutral” and issued a price target of $180. Wells Fargo downgraded the stock to “Underweight” from Equal Weight on December 12, 2024 at a price target of $175-$160. Redburn Atlantic initiated its price target at $165.
The current price level is 0.38%, -1.00%, and -6.45% away from its SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200 respectively, with the HSY price moving above the 50-day SMA on current market day. Hershey Company (HSY) stock is down -7.98% over the week and -0.41% over the past month. Its price is -4.42% year-to-date and -4.30% over the past year.
The company’s next earnings report forecasts estimating quarterly EPS at 2.38 and 9.05 for whole year. Expected sales for next quarter are $3.16B, which analysts say will come at $11.16B for the current fiscal year and next year at $11.44B. In addition, estimates put the company’s current quarterly revenue at an average of $2.85B.
Its 12-month price target is $168.5. To reach the target analysts have set, the stock logically needs to grow 1.6 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 $163, given the recent momentum. And then, on the bullish side of things, one analyst is expecting the stock to peak at $202.
Outstanding shares total 147.73M with insiders holding 0.25% of the shares and institutional holders owning 87.84% of the company’s common stock. The company has a return on investment of 23.01% and return on equity of 43.41%. The price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) amounts to 20.53 while the forward price to earnings ratio is 21.93. The beta has a value of 0.37. Price to book ratio is 8.58 and price to sales ratio is 3.27.
