Short Interest in Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Expands By 37.9%

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) saw a significant growth in short interest in the month of February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 7,390,000 shares, a growth of 37.9% from the February 13th total of 5,360,000 shares. Currently, 2.9% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 972,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 7.6 days.

Institutional Trading of Open Text

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of OTEX. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 3.3% in the third quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 11,093 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $369,000 after acquiring an additional 351 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 40.8% in the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,373 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $39,000 after acquiring an additional 398 shares during the period. Allworth Financial LP boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 20.7% in the fourth quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 2,564 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $73,000 after acquiring an additional 439 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 103.8% in the fourth quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 1,011 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 515 shares during the period. Finally, DGS Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. DGS Capital Management LLC now owns 26,477 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $750,000 after acquiring an additional 530 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.37% of the company’s stock.

Open Text Stock Performance

Shares of OTEX traded down $0.05 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $26.01. The stock had a trading volume of 834,294 shares, compared to its average volume of 742,021. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.87. Open Text has a 12 month low of $24.86 and a 12 month high of $40.55. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.87 billion, a PE ratio of 10.57 and a beta of 1.17. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $27.69 and a 200 day moving average price of $29.87.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.92 by $0.10. Open Text had a return on equity of 23.23% and a net margin of 12.21%. Analysts anticipate that Open Text will post 3.45 EPS for the current year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a dividend of $0.2625 per share. This represents a $1.05 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.04%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. This is a positive change from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.26. Open Text’s payout ratio is currently 42.68%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

OTEX has been the topic of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com cut shares of Open Text from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 27th. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Open Text in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 price objective on the stock. TD Securities cut their price objective on shares of Open Text from $38.00 to $35.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Sunday, February 9th. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Open Text from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Open Text from $33.00 to $31.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 7th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $35.18.

About Open Text

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.