John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) Shares Gap Down – Here’s What Happened

Shares of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE:WLY) gapped down before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $51.05, but opened at $48.84. John Wiley & Sons shares last traded at $54.0620, with a volume of 161,877 shares changing hands.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on WLY shares. Zacks Research lowered John Wiley & Sons from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, May 15th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of John Wiley & Sons from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy”.

John Wiley & Sons Trading Up 4.3%

The stock has a market capitalization of $2.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.62 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a current ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 0.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The company has a fifty day moving average of $51.43 and a two-hundred day moving average of $43.36.

John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 3rd. The company reported $0.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.40 by $0.04. John Wiley & Sons had a net margin of 13.22% and a return on equity of 29.01%. The company had revenue of $386.36 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $380.20 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.49 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that John Wiley & Sons, Inc. will post 4.8 EPS for the current year.

John Wiley & Sons Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 23rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th were given a dividend of $0.3575 per share. This is a boost from John Wiley & Sons’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.35. This represents a $1.43 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.7%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, July 7th. John Wiley & Sons’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 33.81%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. California State Teachers Retirement System raised its holdings in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 3,580.2% in the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 2,060,802 shares of the company’s stock worth $99,970,000 after buying an additional 2,004,805 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can acquired a new position in shares of John Wiley & Sons during the fourth quarter worth approximately $13,526,000. Clarkston Capital Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 18.6% during the fourth quarter. Clarkston Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,617,945 shares of the company’s stock valued at $80,188,000 after purchasing an additional 410,121 shares during the last quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd grew its stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 323.5% during the second quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 528,088 shares of the company’s stock valued at $23,569,000 after purchasing an additional 403,389 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP acquired a new stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $12,273,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.94% of the company’s stock.

About John Wiley & Sons

John Wiley & Sons, Inc is a global publishing and educational services company founded in 1807 and headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company operates through two primary segments: Research & Publishing and Education. Through these segments, Wiley produces a wide range of scholarly journals, books, reference works and digital products for academic, scientific, technical and medical markets, as well as professional development and higher education learning resources.

In its Research & Publishing segment, Wiley publishes thousands of peer-reviewed journals and maintains the Wiley Online Library, a leading platform for scientific and scholarly content.