Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Short Interest Up 8.3% in January

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) was the target of a significant increase in short interest during the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 856,500 shares, an increase of 8.3% from the January 15th total of 790,800 shares. Currently, 2.8% of the company’s shares are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 314,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.7 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. V Square Quantitative Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Finally, Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AYI has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 0.6 %

NYSE:AYI traded up $1.87 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $330.96. The stock had a trading volume of 17,610 shares, compared to its average volume of 310,284. Acuity Brands has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The company has a market cap of $10.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.36, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. The business’s 50 day moving average is $317.10 and its 200-day moving average is $295.77.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a $0.17 dividend. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.21%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is 5.01%.

Acuity Brands Company Profile

Acuity Brands, Inc provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL); and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG). The ABL segment provides commercial, architectural, and specialty lighting solutions, as well as lighting controls and components for various indoor and outdoor applications under the A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch.