Short Interest in Silgan Holdings Inc. (NYSE:SLGN) Increases By 16.0%

Silgan Holdings Inc. (NYSE:SLGN) saw a large growth in short interest in November. As of November 30th, there was short interest totalling 2,390,000 shares, a growth of 16.0% from the November 15th total of 2,060,000 shares. Approximately 2.8% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 540,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.4 days.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Silgan

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Silgan by 0.5% during the second quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 40,071 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,696,000 after purchasing an additional 218 shares during the period. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC increased its holdings in shares of Silgan by 5.1% during the second quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 5,156 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $218,000 after purchasing an additional 250 shares during the period. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Silgan by 2.6% during the second quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 10,707 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $453,000 after purchasing an additional 267 shares during the period. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Silgan by 5.5% during the third quarter. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC now owns 7,430 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $390,000 after purchasing an additional 388 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Silgan by 1.1% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 37,660 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,594,000 after purchasing an additional 421 shares during the period. 70.25% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Silgan Price Performance

SLGN stock traded down $0.55 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $53.63. The stock had a trading volume of 71,588 shares, compared to its average volume of 565,053. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $53.79 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $49.97. Silgan has a 1-year low of $41.14 and a 1-year high of $58.14. The stock has a market cap of $5.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 0.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a current ratio of 1.09.

Silgan (NYSE:SLGN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The industrial products company reported $1.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.23 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $1.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.82 billion. Silgan had a return on equity of 18.76% and a net margin of 5.11%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.16 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Silgan will post 3.6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Silgan Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 16th. Investors of record on Monday, December 2nd were paid a dividend of $0.19 per share. This represents a $0.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 2nd. Silgan’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.54%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

SLGN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Silgan from $55.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. StockNews.com lowered shares of Silgan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Silgan currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $57.43.

Silgan Company Profile

Silgan Holdings Inc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells rigid packaging solutions for consumer goods products in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Dispensing and Specialty Closures, Metal Containers, and Custom Containers. The Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment offers a range of metal and plastic closures, and dispensing systems for food, beverage, health care, garden, home, personal care, beauty products, and hard surface cleaning products, as well as capping/sealing equipment and detection systems.