StockNews.com Begins Coverage on Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST)

StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST – Get Rating) in a research note issued to investors on Thursday. The brokerage issued a hold rating on the stock.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on Monster Beverage from $105.00 to $113.00 in a research note on Friday, December 16th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on Monster Beverage from $117.00 to $115.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Monster Beverage from $114.00 to $112.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 1st. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on Monster Beverage from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 1st. Finally, Argus lifted their price objective on Monster Beverage from $113.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 29th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Monster Beverage currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $110.28.

Monster Beverage Stock Down 0.4 %

MNST stock opened at $102.99 on Thursday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $102.34 and a two-hundred day moving average of $97.71. The stock has a market cap of $53.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 46.18, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.87. Monster Beverage has a 52-week low of $77.25 and a 52-week high of $105.45.

Shares of Monster Beverage are scheduled to split on Tuesday, March 28th. The 2-1 split was announced on Tuesday, February 28th. The newly minted shares will be distributed to shareholders after the closing bell on Monday, March 27th.

Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST – Get Rating) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 28th. The company reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.61 by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $1.51 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.60 billion. Monster Beverage had a return on equity of 17.32% and a net margin of 18.88%. Monster Beverage’s revenue was up 6.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.60 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Monster Beverage will post 2.98 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Emelie Tirre sold 37,839 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.03, for a total transaction of $3,898,552.17. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 23,201 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,390,399.03. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 10.50% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Monster Beverage

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of MNST. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Monster Beverage by 293.1% during the 2nd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 10,100,259 shares of the company’s stock worth $936,294,000 after buying an additional 7,530,547 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Monster Beverage during the 4th quarter worth about $363,374,000. Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its holdings in Monster Beverage by 17.8% during the 3rd quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 20,190,237 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,755,743,000 after buying an additional 3,054,345 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its holdings in Monster Beverage by 521.1% during the 3rd quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,169,828 shares of the company’s stock worth $188,688,000 after buying an additional 1,820,483 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC lifted its holdings in Monster Beverage by 6.4% during the 2nd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 27,494,943 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,548,782,000 after buying an additional 1,654,974 shares during the last quarter. 75.11% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Monster Beverage Company Profile

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Monster Beverage Corp. is a holding company, which engages in the development, marketing, sale, and distribution of energy drink beverages and concentrates. It operates through the following segments: Monster Energy Drinks, Strategic Brands, and Other. The Monster Energy Drinks segment sells ready-to-drink packaged energy drinks to bottlers and full-service beverage distributors.