Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Short Interest Up 37.9% in February

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. Approximately 2.9% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 972,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 7.6 days.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Open Text

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its holdings in Open Text by 1.1% in the third quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 5,642,455 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $187,952,000 after acquiring an additional 63,620 shares during the last quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC bought a new position in Open Text in the third quarter valued at about $1,467,000. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp boosted its holdings in Open Text by 126.1% in the third quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 86,260 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,871,000 after acquiring an additional 48,111 shares during the last quarter. Stifel Financial Corp bought a new position in Open Text in the third quarter valued at about $2,232,000. Finally, Verition Fund Management LLC bought a new position in Open Text in the third quarter valued at about $950,000. Institutional investors own 70.37% of the company’s stock.

Open Text Price Performance

Shares of OTEX traded down $0.24 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $25.77. The stock had a trading volume of 104,653 shares, compared to its average volume of 739,553. The company’s fifty day moving average is $27.63 and its two-hundred day moving average is $29.83. 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 52 week low of $24.86 and a 52 week high of $40.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.48 and a beta of 1.17.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $1.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.10. Open Text had a return on equity of 23.23% and a net margin of 12.21%. On average, analysts anticipate that Open Text will post 3.45 EPS for the current year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Investors of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a $0.2625 dividend. This is a boost from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.26. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $1.05 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.07%. Open Text’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 42.68%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on OTEX shares. UBS Group started coverage on shares of Open Text in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 price target for the company. TD Securities decreased their price target on shares of Open Text from $38.00 to $35.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Sunday, February 9th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price target on shares of Open Text from $33.00 to $31.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Open Text from $34.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Open Text from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price 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.