AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) Short Interest Down 6.7% in December

AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) was the target of a significant drop in short interest in the month of December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,540,000 shares, a drop of 6.7% from the December 15th total of 1,650,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 434,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 3.5 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on AAON shares. DA Davidson upped their price objective on shares of AAON from $102.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on AAON from $130.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Sidoti downgraded AAON from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $102.00 to $111.00 in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, Baird R W raised AAON from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, AAON has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $133.00.

Insider Transactions at AAON

In other news, CEO Gary D. Fields sold 35,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $132.03, for a total transaction of $4,621,050.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 64,295 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,488,868.85. This trade represents a 35.25 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, VP Casey Kidwell sold 4,796 shares of AAON stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $136.38, for a total value of $654,078.48. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 4,953 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $675,490.14. This represents a 49.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 57,329 shares of company stock valued at $7,663,726 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 18.55% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of AAON. Wasatch Advisors LP boosted its holdings in AAON by 39.1% during the third quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP now owns 1,866,746 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $201,310,000 after purchasing an additional 525,132 shares in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC raised its stake in AAON by 212.3% during the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 656,552 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $57,278,000 after acquiring an additional 446,344 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its stake in shares of AAON by 258.8% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 330,397 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $37,014,000 after purchasing an additional 238,308 shares in the last quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of AAON in the 2nd quarter worth about $15,700,000. Finally, Squarepoint Ops LLC acquired a new stake in shares of AAON during the 2nd quarter worth about $15,687,000. 70.81% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

AAON Price Performance

NASDAQ:AAON opened at $130.18 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a current ratio of 3.06 and a quick ratio of 1.79. The stock has a market cap of $10.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 57.35 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $129.02 and a 200 day moving average price of $108.87. AAON has a one year low of $69.54 and a one year high of $144.07.

AAON (NASDAQ:AAON) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The construction company reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.57 by $0.06. AAON had a return on equity of 24.98% and a net margin of 15.78%. The business had revenue of $327.25 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $315.80 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.64 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that AAON will post 2.26 earnings per share for the current year.

AAON Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 19th. Investors of record on Friday, November 29th were paid a $0.08 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 29th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%. AAON’s payout ratio is 14.10%.

AAON Company Profile

AAON, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and selling air conditioning and heating equipment in the United States and Canada. The company operates through three segments: AAON Oklahoma, AAON Coil Products, and BASX. It offers rooftop units, data center cooling solutions, cleanroom systems, chillers, packaged outdoor mechanical rooms, air handling units, makeup air units, energy recovery units, condensing units, geothermal/water-source heat pumps, coils, and controls.