Lazard - LAZ Stock Forecast, Price & News

Lazard Ltd, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a financial advisory and asset management firm in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America. It operates in two segments, Financial Advisory and Asset Management. The Financial Advisory segment offers various financial advisory services regarding mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, capital advisory, shareholder advisory, capital raising, sovereign advisory, and other strategic advisory matters. This segment serves corporate, partnership, institutional, government, sovereign, and individual clients across various industry areas, including consumers, financial institutions, healthcare and life sciences, industrials, power and energy/infrastructure, and real estate, as well as technology, telecommunication, and media and entertainment. The Asset Management segment offers a range of investment solutions, and investment and wealth management services in equity and fixed income strategies; asset allocation strategies; and alternative investments and private equity funds to corporations, public funds, sovereign entities, endowments and foundations, labor funds, financial intermediaries, and private clients. The company was founded in 1848 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Lazard Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of LAZ Stock traded down $0.32 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $37.27. 458,541 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 787,214. Lazard has a 1-year low of $30.72 and a 1-year high of $53.00. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $34.29 and a 200 day moving average price of $35.11. The company has a quick ratio of 1.70, a current ratio of 1.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.04. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.91 billion, a PE ratio of 7.81 and a beta of 1.43.

Lazard (NYSE:LAZ - Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 28th. The asset manager reported $0.92 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.86 by $0.06. Lazard had a net margin of 16.85% and a return on equity of 56.01%. The business had revenue of $676.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $666.39 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.28 earnings per share. The firm's revenue was down 17.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Lazard will post 3.98 EPS for the current year.

Lazard Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 19th. Investors of record on Monday, August 8th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.37%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 5th. Lazard's payout ratio is presently 41.93%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently commented on LAZ shares. Piper Sandler dropped their target price on shares of Lazard from $45.00 to $44.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 8th. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Lazard from an "equal weight" rating to an "underweight" rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $40.00 to $30.00 in a report on Monday, July 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods downgraded shares of Lazard from a "market perform" rating to an "underperform" rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $38.00 to $30.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 13th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Lazard from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday, July 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on shares of Lazard from $32.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Thursday, August 4th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Lazard has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $39.71.

Insider Activity at Lazard

In related news, President Alexander F. Stern sold 70,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.29, for a total transaction of $2,470,300.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 209,258 shares of the company's stock, valued at $7,384,714.82. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 3.86% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.