ING Group (NYSE:ING) Rating Increased to Overweight at Morgan Stanley

ING Group (NYSE:ING) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report issued on Wednesday, Briefing.com reports.

Several other research firms have also recently commented on ING. Weiss Ratings cut ING Group from a “buy (a-)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 13th. Zacks Research upgraded ING Group from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, July 27th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy”.

ING Group Trading Down 0.2%

ING Group stock opened at $35.25 on Wednesday. ING Group has a 52-week low of $23.63 and a 52-week high of $36.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.99. The firm has a market capitalization of $100.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.15, a PEG ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 0.84. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $33.75 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $30.43.

ING Group (NYSE:ING) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 30th. The financial services provider reported $0.79 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $4.76 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.99 billion. ING Group had a net margin of 28.15% and a return on equity of 12.59%. Sell-side analysts expect that ING Group will post 2.82 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its stake in ING Group by 7.3% during the second quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 8,764,562 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $191,681,000 after buying an additional 593,424 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of ING Group by 2.5% during the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 7,804,829 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $218,535,000 after purchasing an additional 191,101 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp boosted its position in shares of ING Group by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 4,456,398 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $116,223,000 after purchasing an additional 73,959 shares in the last quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN grew its stake in shares of ING Group by 61.9% in the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 2,700,573 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $75,616,000 after purchasing an additional 1,032,177 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quantinno Capital Management LP grew its stake in shares of ING Group by 9.5% in the 1st quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 1,803,670 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $46,986,000 after purchasing an additional 156,461 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 4.49% of the company’s stock.

ING Group Company Profile

ING Group N.V. is a Dutch multinational financial services company headquartered in Amsterdam. Formed through the consolidation of Dutch financial businesses, ING operates as a banking and financial services group that serves retail, small and medium-sized enterprises, large corporates and institutional clients. The company is organized under a two-tier governance model common in the Netherlands, with an Executive Board responsible for day-to-day management and a Supervisory Board providing oversight.

ING’s principal activities include retail and direct banking, commercial and wholesale banking, corporate lending, transaction services and cash management, and a range of investment and savings products.