Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Short Interest Up 37.9% in February

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEXGet Free Report) (TSE:OTC) saw a significant growth in short interest in February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 7,390,000 shares, a growth of 37.9% from the February 13th total of 5,360,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 972,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 7.6 days. Currently, 2.9% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on OTEX. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Open Text from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Open Text from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on shares of Open Text from $33.00 to $31.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 7th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Open Text from $34.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, UBS Group initiated coverage on shares of Open Text in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 target price for the company. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.18.

Read Our Latest Analysis on Open Text

Institutional Trading of Open Text

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Open Text by 11.8% during the 4th quarter. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd now owns 18,547,256 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $522,879,000 after buying an additional 1,957,695 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its position in Open Text by 9.5% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 7,275,908 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $205,925,000 after acquiring an additional 632,437 shares during the period. Cooke & Bieler LP increased its position in Open Text by 6.6% during the fourth quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 6,308,967 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $178,670,000 after acquiring an additional 389,220 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in Open Text by 75.9% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 5,994,675 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $169,555,000 after acquiring an additional 2,586,549 shares during the period. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its position in Open Text by 1.1% during the third quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 5,642,455 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $187,952,000 after acquiring an additional 63,620 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.37% of the company’s stock.

Open Text Stock Performance

OTEX stock traded up $0.95 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $26.06. The stock had a trading volume of 1,207,497 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,101,871. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $27.69 and a 200 day simple moving average of $29.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.88 billion, a PE ratio of 10.59 and a beta of 1.17. Open Text has a fifty-two week low of $24.86 and a fifty-two week high of $40.55.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEXGet Free Report) (TSE:OTC) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $1.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.10. Open Text had a net margin of 12.21% and a return on equity of 23.23%. Analysts predict that Open Text will post 3.45 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be paid a dividend of $0.2625 per share. This represents a $1.05 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.03%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This is a boost from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.26. Open Text’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 42.68%.

About Open Text

(Get Free Report)

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.

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