4. Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 61
Number of Years of Consistent Dividend Growth: 59
Dividend Yield: 1.65%
Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) is a home improvement retailer in the US and internationally. The company provides customers with construction, maintenance, repair, remodeling, and decorating products, and ranks 4th on our list of the best dividend kings to buy now according to hedge funds.
This May, Truist, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Suisse raised their price targets on Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW). Truist raised it to $217 with a Buy rating, while Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse raised their targets to $230 with an Overweight rating and $205 with an Outperform rating respectively.
In the fiscal first quarter of 2022, Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) had an EPS of $3.21, beating estimates by $0.62. The company’s revenue was $24.42 billion, up 24.13% year over year and beating estimates by $667.62 million. Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) has gained 14.02% in the past 6 months and 21.14% year to date.
By the end of the first quarter of 2021, 61 hedge funds out of the 866 tracked by Insider Monkey held stakes in Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) worth roughly $5.17 billion. This is compared to 71 hedge funds in the previous quarter with a total stake value of about $5.19 billion.
Pershing Square Holdings Ltd, an investment management firm, mentioned Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) in its fourth-quarter 2020 investor letter. Here‘s what they said:
“Lowe’s is a high-quality business with significant long-term earnings growth potential. We initiated our investment in the company in April 2018 largely because we believed that the hiring of a new high-caliber management team could dramatically improve the business and close the performance gap to its closest competitor, Home Depot. Marvin Ellison became CEO in July 2018, and immediately began working on a multi-year transformation plan to bolster Lowe’s retail fundamentals, reduce structural costs, expand distribution capabilities, and modernize systems and the company’s online capabilities.
In 2020, Lowe’s experienced unprecedented demand driven by consumers nesting at home, higher home asset utilization and a reallocation of discretionary spend. Lowe’s earlier decision to modernize the company’s online offering allowed it to meet consumers’ surging demand. Further, its commitment to improve the company’s retail fundamentals allowed Lowe’s to showcase its enhanced merchandising, greater in-stock-levels, and excellent customer service. In the fourth quarter, the company completed 95% of its store layout resets which include a more intuitive shopping experience complete with a more Pro-centric layout (by “Pro” we refer to the professional tradesmen that perform repair and maintenance, remodeling and construction services). The company is also rolling out a new Pro CRM tool, which should improve Lowe’s Pro market share…” (Click here to see the full text)
