AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (NYSE:AB) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (NYSE:AB) have earned an average rating of “Hold” from the six brokerages that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $37.50.

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on AB shares. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of AllianceBernstein from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 10th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of AllianceBernstein from $41.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 11th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of AllianceBernstein from $36.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, April 25th. TD Cowen cut their price objective on shares of AllianceBernstein from $37.50 to $34.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 9th. Finally, Bank of America cut shares of AllianceBernstein from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $42.00 to $38.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 3rd.

Insider Transactions at AllianceBernstein

In other AllianceBernstein news, Director Charles G.T. Stonehill sold 5,000 shares of AllianceBernstein stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $41.18, for a total transaction of $205,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 20,923 shares in the company, valued at $861,609.14. This trade represents a 19.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Daniel G. Kaye sold 4,825 shares of AllianceBernstein stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.80, for a total transaction of $196,860.00. Following the sale, the director owned 39,877 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,626,981.60. This represents a 10.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 2.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AllianceBernstein

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AB. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC purchased a new position in shares of AllianceBernstein in the second quarter valued at approximately $193,757,000. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of AllianceBernstein by 19.0% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,110,304 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $115,361,000 after purchasing an additional 496,923 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its stake in shares of AllianceBernstein by 1.1% in the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 3,026,102 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $112,238,000 after purchasing an additional 33,888 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in shares of AllianceBernstein by 18.1% in the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,899,762 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $107,552,000 after purchasing an additional 445,398 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of AllianceBernstein by 51.8% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 916,574 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $35,114,000 after purchasing an additional 312,878 shares during the period. 19.25% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

AllianceBernstein Stock Down 1.7%

Shares of NYSE AB opened at $40.42 on Wednesday. AllianceBernstein has a 52 week low of $30.57 and a 52 week high of $41.99. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 0.82. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $40.40 and a 200-day simple moving average of $38.54.

AllianceBernstein (NYSE:AB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The asset manager reported $0.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.78 by $0.02. AllianceBernstein had a net margin of 9.44% and a return on equity of 18.27%. The firm had revenue of $838.21 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $859.36 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.73 earnings per share. AllianceBernstein’s revenue was down 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that AllianceBernstein will post 3.58 EPS for the current year.

AllianceBernstein Cuts Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 22nd. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 5th were given a dividend of $0.80 per share. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 5th. AllianceBernstein’s dividend payout ratio is presently 86.02%.

About AllianceBernstein

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm is a related adviser The firm manages separate client focused portfolios for its clients. The firm primarily invests in common and preferred stocks, warrants and convertible securities, government and corporate fxed-income securities, commodities, currencies, real estate-related assets and infation-protected securities.