Stock Traders Purchase High Volume of Call Options on American Axle & Manufacturing (NYSE:AXL)

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AXL) was the target of unusually large options trading on Friday. Stock traders bought 6,096 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 539% compared to the typical daily volume of 954 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On American Axle & Manufacturing

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Marshall Wace LLP grew its holdings in American Axle & Manufacturing by 201.2% in the 4th quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,246,559 shares of the auto parts company’s stock worth $7,267,000 after buying an additional 832,726 shares in the last quarter. Lonestar Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of American Axle & Manufacturing in the fourth quarter worth $3,893,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in shares of American Axle & Manufacturing by 546.6% during the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 786,569 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $4,586,000 after purchasing an additional 664,922 shares during the period. Whitebox Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of American Axle & Manufacturing by 33.7% during the fourth quarter. Whitebox Advisors LLC now owns 1,892,723 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $11,035,000 after purchasing an additional 477,550 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in American Axle & Manufacturing by 3.0% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,713,232 shares of the auto parts company’s stock worth $91,608,000 after purchasing an additional 462,847 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.41% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AXL has been the topic of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on American Axle & Manufacturing from $10.00 to $8.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 3rd. StockNews.com cut shares of American Axle & Manufacturing from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, February 17th. Cowen assumed coverage on shares of American Axle & Manufacturing in a report on Thursday, March 6th. They set a “hold” rating for the company. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of American Axle & Manufacturing from $6.00 to $3.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 10th. Finally, Barclays lowered their price objective on American Axle & Manufacturing from $8.00 to $7.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $6.25.

American Axle & Manufacturing Stock Performance

Shares of AXL stock opened at $3.99 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $472.15 million, a P/E ratio of 14.25 and a beta of 1.70. The business has a 50 day moving average of $4.01 and a two-hundred day moving average of $5.28. American Axle & Manufacturing has a 52 week low of $3.00 and a 52 week high of $7.98. The company has a quick ratio of 1.25, a current ratio of 1.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.58.

American Axle & Manufacturing (NYSE:AXL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 2nd. The auto parts company reported $0.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.06 by $0.03. American Axle & Manufacturing had a return on equity of 10.44% and a net margin of 0.57%. The business had revenue of $1.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.43 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.18 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 12.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that American Axle & Manufacturing will post 0.57 EPS for the current year.

American Axle & Manufacturing Company Profile

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, Inc engages in the manufacture, engineering, design, and validation of driveline systems and related components. It operates through the Driveline and Metal Forming segments. The Driveline segment consists of axles, drive shafts, power transfer units, rear drive modules, and electric and hybrid driveline products and systems for light trucks, service utility vehicles, crossover vehicles, passenger cars, and commercial vehicles.