Ecolab stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
February 21st, 2020
5
Ecolab Inc. provides water, hygiene, and energy technologies and services for customers worldwide. The company operates through Global Industrial, Global Institutional, and Global Energy segments.
Should I buy Ecolab stock?
Trading stocks requires experience and discipline, and your buying and selling decisions must come following a methodology. Following a trading plan helps to make decisions easier, quicker and with less hesitations. There are thousands of trading strategies for you to choose, but at Stocks2.com we prefer those that are simple but successful.Currently, 2 buy setups match with Ecolab stock now:
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | Yes |
| New 52 week high | Yes |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Ecolab stock a buy?
Banks and financial institutions post stock ratings everyday.
Unfortunately, we couldn't detect any rating for ECL stock for the last month.Ecolab stock analysis
Daily outlook
After topping to all time highs yesterday, Ecolab inched 0.58% to $207.50.
After yesterday all time highs, Ecolab inched considerably to $207.50. On January/15 ECL price bounced up over the SMA of 200 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock. Yesterday, ECL hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on February 19th tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Shares of Ecolab closed this week at $207.50 after topping to a new all time high ($211.24) and remained stable a neutral 0.09%. With this, it's been 3 climbing weeks in a row, soaring a 5.75%.
Weekly chart tells us that price finally broke over the resistance at $193.89 and continued climbing. Since mid January when ECL stock price broke up the SMA40w line, it gained $18.57 (9.83%).
Ecolab stock price history
Ecolab stock historical price chart
ECL stock reached all-time highs yesterday with a price of $211.24.
Ecolab stock price target
Predicting the price evolution of a stock or any financial instrument in a reliable and repeatable way is probably impossible. However, many stock price predictions are published every day by banks, financial institutions and independent analysts. We do not recommend to follow these stock price predictions without a critical thinking from your side, as their accuracy is usually low. For the last month we have not found any price forecast for Ecolab stock by any trusted analyst.Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
, Ecolab was in line with the forecasts of the analysts and reported an EPS of $1.54 per share. Unfortunately, reported EPS is not yet available in our database.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 1.11 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-31 | 1.36 | 1.37 | 0.7% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-20 | 1.4 | 1.39 | -0.7% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-01 | 0.88 | 0.91 | 3.4% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-31 | 1.27 | 1.27 | 0.0% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-30 | 1.55 | 1.53 | -1.3% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-02-19 | 1.54 | 1.54 | 0.0% |
| 2019-Q1 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
In 2018, Ecolab annual turnover jumped a pretty good 6.02% to $14,668.20 M dollars from $13,835.90 marked in 2017. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, on the other hand, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) decreased a -1.13% to 9.74%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $13,250 M | - | $968 M7.3% | - |
| 2014 | $14,281 M | 7.78% | $1,203 M8.4% | 24.28% |
| 2015 | $13,545 M | -5.15% | $1,002 M7.4% | -16.69% |
| 2016 | $13,153 M | -2.90% | $1,230 M9.3% | 22.70% |
| 2017 | $13,836 M | 5.19% | $1,505 M10.9% | 22.36% |
| 2018 | $14,668 M | 6.02% | $1,429 M9.7% | -5.02% |
Quarterly financial results
Ecolab reported $3,760.50 million in sales for 2018-Q4, a 0.35% up compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $395.10 M with a profit margin of 10.51%. Profit margin declined a -1.11% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 11.62%. When comparing revenues to same quarter last year, Ecolab sales marked a tiny increase and raised a 2.99%. Looking back to recent quarterly results, Ecolab posted 3 positive quarters in a row.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $3,460 M | - | $297 M8.6% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $3,563 M | 2.99% | $392 M11.0% | 32.30% |
| 2017-Q4 | $3,651 M | 2.47% | $566 M15.5% | 44.34% |
| 2018-Q1 | $3,471 M | -4.94% | $247 M7.1% | -56.34% |
| 2018-Q2 | $3,690 M | 6.30% | $351 M9.5% | 42.05% |
| 2018-Q3 | $3,747 M | 1.56% | $435 M11.6% | 23.94% |
| 2018-Q4 | $3,761 M | 0.35% | $395 M10.5% | -9.26% |
| 2019-Q1 | $3,505 M | -6.78% | $297 M8.5% | -24.96% |
Ecolab ownership
When you are planning to invest in a company, it's always worth to have a look its ownership structure.Ecolab shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.47% of all shares.
Bearish positions for ECL stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
For a better context understanding, the following table shows ownership data compared to other related stocks:
| ECL | |
|---|---|
| Market cap | $59.8 B |
| Total shares | 288.2 M |
| Float shares | 286.8 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 88.5% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.5% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% |
Ecolab summary
| Friday, February 21st, 2020 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $205.81 |
| Close | $207.50 |
| Day range | $205.59 - $208.83 |
| Previous close | $206.31 |
| Session gain | 0.58% |
| Average true range | $3.22 |
| 50d mov avg | $195.56 |
| 100d mov avg | $192.66 |
| 200d mov avg | $193.77 |
| Daily pattern | |
| Weekly pattern | lb01c |
Ecolab performance
To measure stock performance is always good to compare with competitors or related stocks. In the following table, we compare Ecolab to :| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECLEcolab | 13.98% | 3.32% | 25.47% |