Short Interest in Arko Corp. (NASDAQ:ARKO) Grows By 23.0%

Arko Corp. (NASDAQ:ARKO) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,050,000 shares, a growth of 23.0% from the February 28th total of 2,480,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 666,400 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.6 days. Currently, 4.1% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arko

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of ARKO. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio bought a new stake in Arko during the 4th quarter valued at $53,000. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC grew its holdings in shares of Arko by 90.9% during the fourth quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 9,742 shares of the company’s stock valued at $64,000 after buying an additional 4,639 shares during the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Arko during the fourth quarter worth about $66,000. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS acquired a new stake in shares of Arko in the 4th quarter worth about $66,000. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. bought a new position in Arko in the 4th quarter valued at about $68,000. 78.29% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Arko Stock Performance

Shares of Arko stock opened at $4.03 on Wednesday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $5.70 and a 200 day simple moving average of $6.43. Arko has a one year low of $3.76 and a one year high of $7.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.86, a current ratio of 1.63 and a quick ratio of 1.13. The firm has a market capitalization of $466.56 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.19 and a beta of 0.61.

Arko Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 10th were given a dividend of $0.03 per share. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.98%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 10th. Arko’s payout ratio is 92.31%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Stifel Nicolaus lowered shares of Arko from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $8.50 to $7.50 in a report on Thursday, February 27th.

About Arko

Arko Corp. operates convenience stores in the United States. It operates through Retail, Wholesale, Fleet Fueling, and GPMP segments. The Retail segment engages in the sale of fuel and merchandise to retail consumers. Its Wholesale segment supplies fuel to third-party dealers and consignment agents. The Fleet Fueling segment supplies fuel to proprietary and third-party cardlock, and issuance of proprietary fuel cards.