River Street Advisors LLC Acquires 315 Shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)

River Street Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) by 1.9% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 17,051 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 315 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley makes up approximately 1.0% of River Street Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 28th biggest position. River Street Advisors LLC’s holdings in Morgan Stanley were worth $1,777,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Rosenberg Matthew Hamilton grew its holdings in Morgan Stanley by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Rosenberg Matthew Hamilton now owns 3,748 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $391,000 after buying an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. Omnia Family Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 3.3% in the third quarter. Omnia Family Wealth LLC now owns 3,063 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $319,000 after buying an additional 97 shares in the last quarter. TFB Advisors LLC grew its stake in Morgan Stanley by 3.9% during the third quarter. TFB Advisors LLC now owns 2,662 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $277,000 after acquiring an additional 99 shares in the last quarter. Compagnie Lombard Odier SCmA increased its holdings in Morgan Stanley by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Compagnie Lombard Odier SCmA now owns 33,850 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $3,529,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the period. Finally, Lansing Street Advisors lifted its stake in Morgan Stanley by 0.8% in the 3rd quarter. Lansing Street Advisors now owns 12,284 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,280,000 after purchasing an additional 103 shares in the last quarter. 84.19% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MS has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $108.00 to $122.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Morgan Stanley from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $107.00 to $142.00 in a research report on Friday. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley from $120.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley from $106.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, HSBC upgraded Morgan Stanley from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $118.00 price objective for the company in a report on Friday, October 4th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $111.29.

Morgan Stanley Trading Up 1.2 %

MS traded up $1.63 on Friday, reaching $134.06. 7,281,941 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 7,093,088. Morgan Stanley has a one year low of $76.33 and a one year high of $134.91. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.14. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $112.55 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $103.75. The company has a market cap of $215.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.23 and a beta of 1.34.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The financial services provider reported $1.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.31. Morgan Stanley had a net margin of 10.64% and a return on equity of 12.58%. The company had revenue of $15.38 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $14.27 billion. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Morgan Stanley will post 7.32 earnings per share for the current year.

Morgan Stanley Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 31st were issued a $0.925 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 31st. This represents a $3.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.76%. Morgan Stanley’s dividend payout ratio is presently 56.32%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Stephen J. Luczo sold 60,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.17, for a total transaction of $7,150,200.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 138,363 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,488,718.71. This represents a 30.25 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.24% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Morgan Stanley Profile

Morgan Stanley, a financial holding company, provides various financial products and services to corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It operates through Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments.