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

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) (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.

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:OTEX) (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

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.