Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. Sells 6,220 Shares of Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX)

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. lowered its holdings in Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) by 2.1% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 289,750 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after selling 6,220 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc.’s holdings in Equifax were worth $71,652,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Equifax by 105,549.9% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 38,813,671 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $7,543,825,000 after acquiring an additional 38,776,933 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Equifax by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,036,468 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $3,090,947,000 after acquiring an additional 155,572 shares during the period. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Equifax by 77.8% during the 4th quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 8,935,666 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $1,736,737,000 after acquiring an additional 3,910,202 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. increased its holdings in Equifax by 3.9% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,784,076 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $1,781,762,000 after acquiring an additional 331,355 shares during the period. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in Equifax by 11.4% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,226,424 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $1,015,808,000 after acquiring an additional 535,644 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 96.20% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on EFX. Redburn Atlantic lowered shares of Equifax from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $272.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Thursday, January 11th. TheStreet raised shares of Equifax from a “c+” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Friday, December 29th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on shares of Equifax from $208.00 to $289.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 9th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $305.00 price target on shares of Equifax in a report on Friday, February 9th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on shares of Equifax from $195.00 to $222.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, December 29th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $267.00.

Equifax Price Performance

Shares of Equifax stock opened at $237.68 on Thursday. Equifax Inc. has a 52-week low of $159.95 and a 52-week high of $275.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $29.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 1.51. The company has a fifty day moving average of $259.14 and a 200-day moving average of $231.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.04, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.67.

Equifax (NYSE:EFX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 17th. The credit services provider reported $1.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.44 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $1.39 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.40 billion. Equifax had a net margin of 10.36% and a return on equity of 19.40%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.43 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Equifax Inc. will post 7.53 EPS for the current year.

Equifax Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 23rd were given a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 22nd. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. Equifax’s payout ratio is currently 35.45%.

Equifax Profile

Equifax Inc operates as a data, analytics, and technology company. The company operates through three segments: Workforce Solutions, U.S. Information Solutions (USIS), and International. The Workforce Solutions segment offers services that enables customers to verify income, employment, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure, and sanctions of people in the United States; and employer customers with services that assist them in complying with and automating payroll-related and human resource management processes throughout the entire cycle of the employment relationship.