Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Short Interest Up 19.9% in February

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX - Get Free Report) TSE: OTC was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest in the month of February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,360,000 shares, an increase of 19.9% from the January 31st total of 4,470,000 shares. Currently, 2.1% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 703,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 7.6 days.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently commented on OTEX shares. TD Securities dropped their target price on Open Text from $38.00 to $35.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Sunday, February 9th. Citigroup raised their target price on Open Text from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Barclays raised their target price on Open Text from $34.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. StockNews.com lowered Open Text from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on Open Text from $33.00 to $31.00 and set a "sector perform" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 7th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $35.18.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On Open Text

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio lifted its position in Open Text by 208.2% during the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio now owns 140,726 shares of the software maker's stock worth $3,985,000 after buying an additional 95,058 shares in the last quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC purchased a new position in Open Text during the fourth quarter worth approximately $372,000. Twinbeech Capital LP purchased a new position in Open Text during the fourth quarter worth approximately $360,000. Two Sigma Investments LP lifted its position in Open Text by 483.2% during the fourth quarter. Two Sigma Investments LP now owns 72,906 shares of the software maker's stock worth $2,065,000 after buying an additional 60,406 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tidal Investments LLC lifted its position in Open Text by 38.8% during the fourth quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 18,238 shares of the software maker's stock worth $516,000 after buying an additional 5,100 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.37% of the company's stock.

Open Text Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ OTEX traded down $0.33 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $26.00. The stock had a trading volume of 1,468,823 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,084,092. The company has a market capitalization of $6.86 billion, a PE ratio of 10.57 and a beta of 1.17. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $27.92 and a 200-day simple moving average of $30.07. Open Text has a 1 year low of $25.07 and a 1 year high of $40.55. The company has a quick ratio of 0.87, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX - Get Free Report) TSE: OTC last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $1.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.92 by $0.10. Open Text had a return on equity of 23.23% and a net margin of 12.21%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Open Text will post 3.45 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be given a $0.2625 dividend. This represents a $1.05 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.04%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 7th. This is an increase from Open Text's previous quarterly dividend of $0.26. Open Text's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 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.