Swiss National Bank Purchases 800 Shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

Swiss National Bank raised its holdings in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 0.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 762,794 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 800 shares during the quarter. Swiss National Bank owned approximately 0.27% of Ecolab worth $194,764,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in ECL. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in Ecolab by 5.0% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,558,198 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $608,851,000 after acquiring an additional 122,715 shares in the last quarter. Mirova US LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Ecolab by 2.3% in the 2nd quarter. Mirova US LLC now owns 1,975,415 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $470,149,000 after buying an additional 43,553 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB bought a new position in shares of Ecolab in the first quarter valued at $390,687,000. American Century Companies Inc. increased its holdings in Ecolab by 1.8% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,372,379 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $326,626,000 after buying an additional 24,648 shares during the last quarter. Finally, abrdn plc lifted its stake in Ecolab by 1.2% in the third quarter. abrdn plc now owns 1,168,367 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $295,661,000 after acquiring an additional 13,654 shares during the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Piper Sandler upped their target price on shares of Ecolab from $270.00 to $305.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Wells Fargo & Company restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Friday, October 18th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America raised Ecolab from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $251.00 to $272.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 31st. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Ecolab from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $235.00 to $310.00 in a report on Friday, October 18th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ecolab has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $277.20.

Ecolab Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of ECL stock opened at $245.24 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $69.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.13. Ecolab Inc. has a 1 year low of $182.39 and a 1 year high of $262.61. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $252.35 and a 200 day simple moving average of $243.95.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.01. Ecolab had a return on equity of 22.12% and a net margin of 13.05%. The firm had revenue of $4 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.03 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.54 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Ecolab news, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 65,015 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $243.80, for a total transaction of $15,850,657.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 30,388,741 shares in the company, valued at $7,408,775,055.80. This represents a 0.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Victoria Reich sold 393 shares of Ecolab stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $250.00, for a total value of $98,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 24,041 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,010,250. The trade was a 1.61 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 478,355 shares of company stock worth $117,922,965 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.04% of the company’s stock.

About Ecolab

Ecolab Inc provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Global Industrial; Global Institutional & Specialty; and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries.