Should Investors Trust The Upside Potential In Fastenal Co (FAST)?

Fastenal Co (NASDAQ:FAST) currently has a daily average trading volume of 3.21M but it saw 1882428 shares traded in last market. With a market cap of 43.30B USD, the company’s current market price of $75.51 came falling about -1.24 while comparing to the previous closing price of $76.46. In past 52 weeks, the stock remained buoying in the range of price level as high as $84.88 and as low as $61.36. In the recent trading on the day, stock has struck highest price mark of $75.27 while lowest mark touched by it was $76.4155.

Taking a look at 20-day trading activity of Fastenal Co (FAST) gives us an average price of $75.75, while its current price level is -11.04% below from 52-week high level whereas it is 23.06% above from lowest level seen by the stock during that period. Simple moving average of 50 days or SMA-50 of the stock’s closing price is $74.91 while that of 200 days or SMA-200 reads an average of $72.52. A closer look into the stock’s movement over the week reveals that its volatility is standing at 1.66% during that period while stretching the period over a month that increases to 2.35%. It is also necessary to take a look into other indicators of a stock too, to get a better idea about its price movement. And in doing so, we find stock’s 14-day relative strength index (RSI) standing at 49.45 which implies that the stock is in neutral territory.

Stifel downgraded its recommendation for the stock as a “Hold” from “Buy” on December 11, 2024 while assigning a price target of $86. HSBC Securities issued its recommendations for the stock as it downgraded the price target for the stock is $70.

Over the week, FAST’s stock price is moving 2.47% up while it is -0.08% when we observe its performance for the past one month. Year-to-date it is 5.01% up and over the past year, the stock is showing a downside performance of -0.25%.

The company is expected to be releasing its next quarterly report on 2025-Jan-16, for which analysts forecasted an EPS of 0.52 while estimate for next year EPS is 2.16. In next quarter, company is expected to be making quarterly sales of $2.05B as analysts are expecting the sales for current fiscal year at $8.04B and seeing the company making $8.69B in sales next year. Moreover, analysts are in estimates of $1.94B for current-quarter revenue.

Currently, Fastenal Co’s total number of outstanding shares is 573.32M with 0.17% of that held by the insiders while 86.47% of its common stock has been owned by the institutions. Company’s return on investment (ROI) stands at 29.29% and return on equity (ROE) at 33.04%. It has a price to earnings ratio (P/E ratio) of 37.69 while having a 32.19 of forward P/E ratio. Stock’s beta reads 1.06. Stock has a price to book (P/B) ratio of 11.97 while price to sale or P/S ratio amounts to 5.74. Its return on asset (ROA) is 25.12% on average.