Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT) Receives Consensus Rating of "Moderate Buy" from Analysts

Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT - Get Free Report) has earned an average rating of "Moderate Buy" from the seven ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, two have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $54.50.

A number of research analysts have commented on CPRT shares. Robert W. Baird decreased their target price on shares of Copart from $64.00 to $55.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. HSBC set a $62.00 price target on shares of Copart and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, September 4th. Stephens reduced their price target on shares of Copart from $50.00 to $46.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 5th. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Copart from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, September 4th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a "hold (c)" rating on shares of Copart in a research report on Friday.

Copart Price Performance

NASDAQ CPRT opened at $44.66 on Friday. The firm's 50-day moving average is $46.39 and its two-hundred day moving average is $50.50. Copart has a 12 month low of $43.32 and a 12 month high of $64.38. The stock has a market capitalization of $43.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.91 and a beta of 1.03.

Copart (NASDAQ:CPRT - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 4th. The business services provider reported $0.41 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.37 by $0.04. Copart had a net margin of 33.41% and a return on equity of 18.17%. The company had revenue of $1.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.14 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.33 earnings per share. Copart's revenue for the quarter was up 2.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Copart will post 1.57 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Jeffrey Liaw sold 24,283 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $44.79, for a total transaction of $1,087,635.57. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 31,332 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,403,360.28. This represents a 43.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Thomas N. Tryforos sold 228,840 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $47.54, for a total transaction of $10,879,053.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 9.68% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Copart

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CPRT. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Copart in the second quarter valued at approximately $549,448,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in Copart in the first quarter valued at approximately $267,723,000. Fiera Capital Corp raised its holdings in Copart by 75.3% in the second quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 7,000,430 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $343,511,000 after acquiring an additional 3,007,820 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP raised its holdings in Copart by 75.2% in the second quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 6,579,404 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $322,851,000 after acquiring an additional 2,824,991 shares in the last quarter. Finally, PineStone Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in Copart by 56.4% in the second quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 6,407,471 shares of the business services provider's stock valued at $314,415,000 after acquiring an additional 2,310,067 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.78% of the company's stock.

About Copart

Copart, Inc provides online auctions and vehicle remarketing services. It offers a range of services for processing and selling vehicles over the Internet through its Virtual Bidding Third Generation Internet auction-style sales technology on behalf of vehicle sellers, insurance companies, banks and finance companies, charities, and fleet operators and dealers, as well as individual owners.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest and most accurate reporting. This story was reviewed by MarketBeat's editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.