Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) Releases Q2 2024 Earnings Guidance

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) issued an update on its second quarter 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of 1.620-1.720 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 1.540. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Ecolab also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 6.400-6.700 EPS.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Bank of America raised shares of Ecolab from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $185.00 to $216.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Citigroup upped their price objective on Ecolab from $237.00 to $256.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Mizuho upgraded shares of Ecolab from a neutral rating to a buy rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $216.00 to $260.00 in a research report on Friday, April 12th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Ecolab from $230.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Finally, Piper Sandler initiated coverage on Ecolab in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. They issued an overweight rating and a $260.00 price target for the company. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $230.47.

Ecolab Stock Performance

Shares of ECL stock opened at $221.67 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.30 and a quick ratio of 0.95. Ecolab has a one year low of $156.72 and a one year high of $231.86. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $224.02 and its 200 day simple moving average is $201.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $63.38 billion, a PE ratio of 46.28, a PEG ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.10.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 13th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $3.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.92 billion. Ecolab had a net margin of 8.96% and a return on equity of 19.36%. Ecolab’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.27 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Ecolab will post 6.42 earnings per share for the current year.

Ecolab Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 19th were issued a dividend of $0.57 per share. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 18th. Ecolab’s payout ratio is 47.60%.

Ecolab Company Profile

Ecolab Inc provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Global Industrial; Global Institutional & Specialty; and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries.