Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:KEYS) Short Interest Up 11.0% in October

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:KEYS) was the target of a large increase in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 3,330,000 shares, an increase of 11.0% from the October 15th total of 3,000,000 shares. Approximately 1.9% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,420,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.3 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

KEYS has been the topic of a number of research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Keysight Technologies from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $146.00 to $164.00 in a research note on Monday, September 4th. Barclays downgraded Keysight Technologies from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price target for the company from $204.00 to $144.00 in a research note on Friday, August 18th. Bank of America lowered their price objective on shares of Keysight Technologies from $148.00 to $142.00 in a research note on Friday, August 18th. Citigroup cut their target price on shares of Keysight Technologies from $174.00 to $165.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Keysight Technologies from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $175.73.

Institutional Trading of Keysight Technologies

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Focused Wealth Management Inc purchased a new stake in Keysight Technologies during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Quarry LP bought a new position in shares of Keysight Technologies during the second quarter worth $27,000. VitalStone Financial LLC purchased a new position in Keysight Technologies during the first quarter valued at $35,000. Optiver Holding B.V. bought a new stake in Keysight Technologies in the 1st quarter valued at $28,000. Finally, Ancora Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Keysight Technologies in the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. Institutional investors own 81.72% of the company’s stock.

Keysight Technologies Price Performance

Shares of KEYS stock traded up $0.38 on Friday, hitting $133.18. 1,153,541 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,228,836. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 3.66 and a quick ratio of 2.93. Keysight Technologies has a 52 week low of $118.57 and a 52 week high of $189.45. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $128.14 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $145.76. The firm has a market cap of $23.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.08, a PEG ratio of 3.28 and a beta of 1.04.

Keysight Technologies (NYSE:KEYS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 17th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.04 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.89 by $0.15. The business had revenue of $1.38 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.38 billion. Keysight Technologies had a return on equity of 30.56% and a net margin of 20.19%. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Keysight Technologies will post 7.52 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Keysight Technologies

Keysight Technologies, Inc provides electronic design and test solutions to commercial communications, networking, aerospace, defense and government, automotive, energy, semiconductor, electronic, and education industries in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. Its Communications Solutions Group segment provides electronic design automation (EDA) software; radio frequency and microwave test solutions, and related software; hardware and virtual network test platforms and software applications, including data center, routing and switching, software defined networking, security, and encryption; oscilloscopes, logic and serial protocol analyzers, logic-signal sources, arbitrary waveform generators, and bit error rate testers; and optical modulation analyzers, optical component analyzers, optical power meters, and optical laser source solutions, as well as resells refurbished used Keysight equipment.