Wall Street Zen Upgrades Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) to “Hold”

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) was upgraded by analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report released on Saturday.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the company. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d)” rating on shares of Navient in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Zacks Research cut shares of Navient from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Barclays set a $9.00 target price on shares of Navient in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Morgan Stanley set a $12.00 price target on shares of Navient in a research note on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their price target on shares of Navient from $15.00 to $9.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 29th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating and six have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Navient currently has an average rating of “Strong Sell” and an average price target of $11.63.

Navient Price Performance

NAVI opened at $8.30 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $10.78 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.03. The company has a current ratio of 9.01, a quick ratio of 9.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 16.94. Navient has a 1 year low of $8.00 and a 1 year high of $16.07. The stock has a market cap of $789.25 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -10.12 and a beta of 1.33.

Navient (NASDAQ:NAVI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 27th. The credit services provider reported $0.02 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31 by ($0.29). Navient had a positive return on equity of 4.70% and a negative net margin of 2.47%.The firm had revenue of $137.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $144.25 million. During the same period last year, the business earned ($0.24) earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Navient will post 1.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Navient

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in Navient by 70.5% during the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,978 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 818 shares during the period. CWM LLC grew its holdings in shares of Navient by 79.0% during the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 2,525 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $33,000 after purchasing an additional 1,114 shares in the last quarter. Kestra Advisory Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Navient during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $44,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Navient by 39.2% in the fourth quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 4,228 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $55,000 after purchasing an additional 1,191 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its stake in Navient by 3,045.4% during the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 5,127 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $67,000 after acquiring an additional 4,964 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 97.14% of the company’s stock.

Navient Company Profile

Navient Corporation (NASDAQ: NAVI) is a specialized provider of asset management and business processing solutions, with a primary focus on student loan servicing. Established in 2014 through the separation from Sallie Mae, Navient assumed responsibility for servicing federal and private education loans, positioning itself as one of the largest servicers of higher education debt in the United States.

The company’s core activities center on federal student loan servicing under contracts with the U.S.