AeroVironment Stock Drops, B of A Maintains Buy Rating

AeroVironment Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV) shares are falling after B of A Securities maintained its Buy rating on the stock but cut its price target to $185 from $225. Here’s what you need to know.

• AeroVironment shares are sliding. What’s weighing on AVAV shares?

B of A Securities Cuts its AeroVironment Price Target

B of A Securities analyst Ronald Epstein maintained a Buy rating on AeroVironment while lowering his price target to $185 from $225.

The move comes alongside a mix of other recent analyst activity: Citizens kept a Market Outperform rating and held its target at $230 on Sept. 10, while JPMorgan raised its target to $210 the same day while maintaining an Overweight rating. AeroVironment carries an overall Buy rating on Wall Street, with an average price target of $214.93, according to Benzinga Pro.

AeroVironment’s Chart Remains in a Longer-Term Downtrend

That price target cut lands on a stock that’s already deep in a multi-month slide. Shares sit roughly 9% under their 20-day average, 11% beneath the 50-day mark, nearly 16% below the 100-day line and a steep 33% under the 200-day average, a lineup that typically means buyers face resistance every time they try to push the stock higher until it can climb back above at least its shorter-term benchmarks. Compounding that, the 20-day average trailing behind the 50-day confirms sellers still hold the advantage in the near term.

A more troubling signal comes from the death cross that showed up back in March, when the 50-day line slipped beneath the 200-day, historically a marker that bears remain firmly in charge over longer stretches. The MACD indicator points in the same bearish direction, sitting under its own signal line with a negative histogram reading, hinting that whatever bounce the stock has managed lately may not have real staying power unless buying demand suddenly intensifies.

With shares parked near their 52-week low of $135.20 and nowhere close to the $417.86 peak reached over the past year, this looks less like an ordinary dip and more like the stock working through a deeper reset. Should the current floor crack, chart watchers typically start eyeing the next level down as a landing spot; if the floor holds instead, attention turns to whether a rebound has enough force to push past resistance and absorb the selling that tends to emerge near overhead averages.

$162.50 marks the ceiling to watch, an area close to where the 50-day and 100-day averages sit and a zone that has previously attracted sellers. On the downside, $140.50 stands out as the level currently being challenged, sitting just a bit above the stock’s 52-week floor.

AVAV Shares Are Falling

AVAV Price Action: AeroVironment shares were down 3.53% at $141.88 at the time of publication on Friday. The stock is near its 52-week low of $135.19, according to Benzinga Pro.

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