Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG) Lowered to “Hold” Rating by Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report published on Saturday morning.

A number of other equities research analysts have also commented on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Warner Music Group in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Morgan Stanley set a $39.00 target price on shares of Warner Music Group in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Warner Music Group in a report on Wednesday, June 24th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Warner Music Group from $40.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Warner Music Group from $40.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, May 8th. Fourteen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Warner Music Group currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $38.43.

Warner Music Group Price Performance

Shares of WMG opened at $28.33 on Friday. Warner Music Group has a 1 year low of $23.34 and a 1 year high of $35.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.62, a current ratio of 0.73 and a quick ratio of 0.71. The company has a market capitalization of $14.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.42 and a beta of 1.30. The business has a 50-day moving average of $30.00 and a 200-day moving average of $29.07.

Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.30 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $1.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.61 billion. Warner Music Group had a return on equity of 62.01% and a net margin of 6.34%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 16.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.07 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Warner Music Group will post 1.52 earnings per share for the current year.

Warner Music Group Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 26th were given a dividend of $0.19 per share. This represents a $0.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.7%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 26th. Warner Music Group’s payout ratio is presently 89.41%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of WMG. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in Warner Music Group by 15.2% in the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 16,645,276 shares of the company’s stock valued at $510,511,000 after purchasing an additional 2,200,362 shares in the last quarter. FIL Ltd boosted its position in shares of Warner Music Group by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 5,880,751 shares of the company’s stock worth $180,363,000 after purchasing an additional 47,760 shares in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Warner Music Group by 22.0% during the 4th quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,885,483 shares of the company’s stock worth $119,168,000 after purchasing an additional 701,829 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG grew its stake in shares of Warner Music Group by 44.1% in the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 3,208,063 shares of the company’s stock valued at $98,391,000 after buying an additional 981,912 shares during the period. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans grew its stake in shares of Warner Music Group by 36.9% in the 4th quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 2,976,111 shares of the company’s stock valued at $91,277,000 after buying an additional 802,694 shares during the period. 96.88% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group is a major global music company that operates across recorded music and music publishing. Its recorded-music business comprises a portfolio of well-known labels—including Atlantic, Warner Records and Parlophone—as well as distribution and artist-services operations that support both established and emerging artists. The company’s publishing arm, Warner Chappell Music, manages songwriting catalogs and administers rights for compositions across multiple media, providing licensing for film, television, advertising and other commercial uses.

WMG’s activities span the full music value chain: signing and developing artists, producing and marketing recordings, distributing music through physical channels and streaming platforms, and monetizing rights through licensing, synchronization and neighboring-rights collection.