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

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

Open Text Price Performance

NASDAQ OTEX traded down $0.04 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $28.13. The company had a trading volume of 414,504 shares, compared to its average volume of 567,840. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.26 and a beta of 1.12. Open Text has a 52 week low of $26.84 and a 52 week high of $45.47. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.06 and a 200 day simple moving average of $30.86.

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

Open Text Increases Dividend

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

OTEX has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. TD Securities decreased their price objective on shares of Open Text from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, December 30th. UBS Group initiated coverage on shares of Open Text in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 price target for the company. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded Open Text from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $45.00 to $33.00 in a research note on Friday, November 1st. StockNews.com downgraded Open Text from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, January 11th. Finally, Scotiabank dropped their price target on Open Text from $40.00 to $35.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $35.27.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in OTEX. Canoe Financial LP grew its position in Open Text by 127.3% during the fourth quarter. Canoe Financial LP now owns 150,000 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $4,242,000 after buying an additional 84,000 shares in the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new position in shares of Open Text during the fourth quarter worth about $2,372,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in shares of Open Text by 5.6% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 19,921 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $563,000 after purchasing an additional 1,049 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its stake in Open Text by 19.9% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 205,891 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $7,086,000 after purchasing an additional 34,135 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB bought a new stake in Open Text during the third quarter valued at approximately $499,000. Institutional investors own 70.37% of the company’s stock.

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.