Despite an impressive 2.1% jump to $464.23, Lockheed Martin may soon be running into resistance as it is now within range of its average analyst target price of $454.5. With an average rating of hold, and analysts assigning target prices from 374 to 515 dollars per share, investors will be asking themselves if the Aerospace & Defense stock can sustain this bullish run.
It seems the market sentiment regarding Lockheed Martin is mostly optimistic, since it has a short interest of only 1.1%. This is the percentage of the share float that is being shorted by investors who are hoping the stock's price will decrease in the future.
When a stock is sold short, it means an investor has borrowed shares of the stock from their broker, and then sold them at the going market price. The investor hopes for the price to decline, so that they might buy those shares back at a lower price in the future. Once they do, they can return the borrowed shares to their broker, and keep the profit they made on the transaction.
One way to get an idea of the market sentiment on a stock is to check its rate of institutional ownership. In the case of Lockheed Martin, institutional investors own 77.0% of the shares. This would indicate a positive sentiment towards the stock among institutions. What does this really tell us?
Institutional investors such as hedge funds, investment firms, and wealth managers devote significant resources to identifying good investments. If they have decided to invest in LMT, it probably means they believe it is a solid investment choice. But it could also mean they are buying up shares in an effort to acquire the company or get seats on the board of directors. Also bear in mind that institutions are fallible (just maybe not quite as fallible as the average retail investor), so they may simply be wrong when they think they've found a good stock.
In conclusion, we see mixed market sentiment regarding Lockheed Martin because of its an analyst consensus of little upside potential, a hold rating,, a very low short interest, and an average number of institutional investors. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.
Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about LMT:
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The stock has trailing 12 month price to earnings (Eps) of $21.75 per share
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Lockheed Martin has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 21.3 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97
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The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 10.1 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
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Lockheed Martin is a Industrials company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 21.46 and 3.7 respectively
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