PriceSmart, Inc. (NASDAQ:PSMT) COO Sells $725,890.20 in Stock

PriceSmart, Inc. (NASDAQ:PSMT) COO John D. Hildebrandt sold 8,020 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.51, for a total transaction of $725,890.20. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 123,547 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,182,238.97. The trade was a 6.10 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link.

PriceSmart Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of PSMT stock opened at $90.79 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $91.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $89.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.78 billion, a PE ratio of 20.00 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a current ratio of 1.26 and a quick ratio of 0.43. PriceSmart, Inc. has a 1-year low of $74.74 and a 1-year high of $99.23.

PriceSmart (NASDAQ:PSMT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The company reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.43 by ($0.22). The company had revenue of $1.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.24 billion. PriceSmart had a return on equity of 12.29% and a net margin of 2.76%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.24 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that PriceSmart, Inc. will post 5.28 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Copeland Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of PriceSmart by 29.2% during the 4th quarter. Copeland Capital Management LLC now owns 621,697 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,302,000 after acquiring an additional 140,515 shares in the last quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. boosted its position in PriceSmart by 2.7% during the third quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 2,818,927 shares of the company’s stock worth $258,721,000 after purchasing an additional 74,201 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in PriceSmart by 5.9% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,182,739 shares of the company’s stock valued at $108,552,000 after purchasing an additional 65,492 shares during the last quarter. Burney Co. purchased a new position in shares of PriceSmart in the fourth quarter valued at $5,030,000. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of PriceSmart by 179.1% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 57,052 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,633,000 after buying an additional 36,614 shares during the last quarter. 80.46% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, StockNews.com cut shares of PriceSmart from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th.

PriceSmart Company Profile

PriceSmart, Inc owns and operates U.S.-style membership shopping warehouse clubs in the United States, Central America, the Caribbean, and Colombia. The company provides basic and private label consumer products under the Member's Selection brand, including groceries, cleaning supplies, health and beauty aids, meat, produce, deli, seafood, and poultry.