Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Short Interest Down 14.5% in December

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) was the target of a significant decrease in short interest during the month of December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,240,000 shares, a decrease of 14.5% from the December 15th total of 4,960,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 648,500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 6.5 days. Approximately 1.6% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Institutional Trading of Open Text

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its holdings in Open Text by 435.7% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 975 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 793 shares during the last quarter. Kimelman & Baird LLC bought a new position in shares of Open Text during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $36,000. Cromwell Holdings LLC boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 29.6% in the 3rd quarter. Cromwell Holdings LLC now owns 1,663 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $55,000 after buying an additional 380 shares during the last quarter. Essex LLC bought a new position in shares of Open Text in the third quarter valued at approximately $210,000. Finally, Net Worth Advisory Group purchased a new stake in shares of Open Text during the third quarter valued at approximately $226,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.37% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Barclays lowered their price objective on Open Text from $36.00 to $34.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 1st. StockNews.com downgraded Open Text from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, January 11th. Royal Bank of Canada cut Open Text from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $45.00 to $33.00 in a report on Friday, November 1st. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Open Text in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 price objective for the company. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of Open Text from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $35.27.

Open Text Stock Down 0.1 %

Shares of OTEX traded down $0.04 on Thursday, reaching $28.13. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 414,504 shares, compared to its average volume of 567,840. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.44 billion, a PE ratio of 16.26 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54. Open Text has a twelve month low of $26.84 and a twelve month high of $45.47. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $29.06 and a 200-day moving average of $30.86.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.80 by $0.13. Open Text had a return on equity of 24.34% and a net margin of 8.35%. The company had revenue of $1.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.90 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts predict that Open Text will post 3.37 EPS for the current year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 29th were issued a dividend of $0.262 per share. This represents a $1.05 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.73%. This is an increase from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 29th. Open Text’s payout ratio is currently 60.69%.

Open Text Company Profile

Open Text Corporation provides information management software and solutions. The company offers content services, which includes content collaboration and intelligent capture to records management, collaboration, e-signatures, and archiving; and operates experience cloud platform that provides customer experience and web content management, digital asset management, customer analytics, AI and insights, e-discovery, digital fax, omnichannel communications, secure messaging, and voice of customer, as well as customer journey, testing, and segmentation.