Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership Takes $1.05 Million Position in FirstCash Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCFS)

Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership bought a new position in shares of FirstCash Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCFS) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 10,140 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,051,000.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new position in FirstCash during the third quarter worth $553,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of FirstCash by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 130,607 shares of the company’s stock worth $13,531,000 after acquiring an additional 4,483 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its position in FirstCash by 67.6% in the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 268,732 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,841,000 after acquiring an additional 108,353 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in FirstCash by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,112,978 shares of the company’s stock valued at $426,105,000 after purchasing an additional 22,009 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new stake in FirstCash during the 4th quarter worth approximately $18,169,000. 80.30% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder Douglas Richard Rippel sold 300,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.43, for a total value of $34,029,000.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 4,431,869 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $502,706,900.67. This represents a 6.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO R Douglas Orr sold 2,000 shares of FirstCash stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.35, for a total value of $226,700.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 100,567 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,399,269.45. This represents a 1.95 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 14.77% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

FirstCash Stock Performance

Shares of FCFS opened at $120.62 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $116.72 and a 200 day moving average of $111.29. The company has a market capitalization of $5.40 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.05 and a beta of 0.58. FirstCash Holdings, Inc. has a 12 month low of $100.24 and a 12 month high of $133.64. The company has a current ratio of 4.14, a quick ratio of 3.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84.

FirstCash (NASDAQ:FCFS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The company reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.02 by $0.10. FirstCash had a net margin of 7.64% and a return on equity of 14.99%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that FirstCash Holdings, Inc. will post 7.7 earnings per share for the current year.

FirstCash Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th were given a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.26%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 14th. FirstCash’s dividend payout ratio is currently 26.53%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Stephens reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $137.00 price target on shares of FirstCash in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th.

FirstCash Profile

FirstCash Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates retail pawn stores in the United States, Mexico, and rest of Latin America. The company operates in three segments: U.S. Pawn, Latin America Pawn, and Retail POS Payment Solutions segments. Its pawn stores lend money on the collateral of pledged personal property, including jewelry, electronics, tools, appliances, sporting goods, and musical instruments; and retails merchandise acquired through collateral forfeitures on forfeited pawn loans and over-the-counter purchases of merchandise directly from customers.