Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Short Interest Down 28.3% in December

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX - Get Free Report) TSE: OTC was the recipient of a significant decrease in short interest in the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,960,000 shares, a decrease of 28.3% from the November 30th total of 6,920,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 613,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 8.1 days. Approximately 1.9% of the company's stock are short sold.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Scotiabank decreased their price target on shares of Open Text from $40.00 to $35.00 and set a "sector perform" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 1st. TD Securities dropped their target price on Open Text from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Citigroup decreased their price target on Open Text from $34.00 to $33.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 1st. UBS Group initiated coverage on Open Text in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. They issued a "neutral" rating and a $32.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada downgraded Open Text from an "outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and lowered their price target for the company from $45.00 to $33.00 in a report on Friday, November 1st. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Open Text has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $35.55.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Open Text

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Open Text by 15.9% in the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 20,298 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $610,000 after acquiring an additional 2,791 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc raised its stake in shares of Open Text by 2.6% during the 2nd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 1,022,387 shares of the software maker's stock worth $30,681,000 after buying an additional 25,665 shares in the last quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP raised its stake in shares of Open Text by 18.6% during the 2nd quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 5,536,769 shares of the software maker's stock worth $166,325,000 after buying an additional 867,978 shares in the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI lifted its holdings in shares of Open Text by 17.5% in the 2nd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,021,893 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $120,390,000 after buying an additional 599,790 shares during the period. Finally, Letko Brosseau & Associates Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 16.8% in the second quarter. Letko Brosseau & Associates Inc. now owns 3,929,040 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $117,956,000 after buying an additional 566,150 shares in the last quarter. 70.37% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Open Text Stock Performance

OTEX stock traded up $0.17 on Friday, hitting $28.31. The company's stock had a trading volume of 857,913 shares, compared to its average volume of 651,100. Open Text has a 1 year low of $27.05 and a 1 year high of $45.47. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54. The stock has a market cap of $7.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.36 and a beta of 1.11. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $30.06 and a two-hundred day moving average of $30.99.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX - Get Free Report) TSE: OTC last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.80 by $0.13. Open Text had a return on equity of 24.34% and a net margin of 8.35%. The firm had revenue of $1.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.90 earnings per share. The business's revenue was down 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts predict that Open Text will post 3.37 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 29th were paid a dividend of $0.262 per share. This represents a $1.05 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.70%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 29th. This is a boost from Open Text's previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. Open Text's dividend payout ratio is 60.69%.

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.