Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) Releases FY 2024 Earnings Guidance

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) updated its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 6.400-6.700 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 6.390. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Ecolab also updated its FY24 guidance to $6.40-6.70 EPS.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Bank of America upgraded shares of Ecolab from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and boosted their target price for the company from $185.00 to $216.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Mizuho upgraded shares of Ecolab from a neutral rating to a buy rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $216.00 to $260.00 in a research note on Friday, April 12th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and set a $238.00 price objective on shares of Ecolab in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $240.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 14th. Finally, Raymond James upped their target price on shares of Ecolab from $230.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $230.47.

Ecolab Price Performance

NYSE ECL traded up $5.21 on Tuesday, hitting $226.88. 849,994 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,201,768. The company has a market cap of $64.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.28, a P/E/G ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.10. Ecolab has a 1-year low of $156.72 and a 1-year high of $231.86. The company has a current ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $224.02 and a two-hundred day moving average of $201.77.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.54 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $3.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.92 billion. Ecolab had a return on equity of 19.36% and a net margin of 8.96%. Ecolab’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.27 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Ecolab will post 6.42 EPS for the current year.

Ecolab Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 19th were paid a dividend of $0.57 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 18th. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.00%. Ecolab’s payout ratio is 47.60%.

Ecolab Company Profile

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.