Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (NASDAQ:CTSH) was the recipient of a significant decrease in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 8,230,000 shares, a decrease of 15.2% from the September 30th total of 9,700,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 3,000,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.7 days. Currently, 1.5% of the shares of the stock are short sold.
A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on CTSH. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions from $64.00 to $60.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions from $76.00 to $69.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Robert W. Baird set a $76.00 target price on shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 6th. HSBC lowered shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $72.00 to $70.00 in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, Credit Suisse Group dropped their target price on shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions from $83.00 to $81.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have given a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. The company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $71.48.
In other news, insider Malcolm Frank sold 678 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $62.22, for a total value of $42,185.16. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 32,402 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,016,052.44. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Matthew W. Friedrich sold 452 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, September 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.29, for a total transaction of $29,059.08. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 18,823 shares of company stock valued at $1,169,337. Corporate insiders own 0.56% of the company’s stock.
CTSH stock traded up $0.27 during trading on Friday, hitting $63.38. 2,550,200 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,873,564. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 2.53 and a current ratio of 2.53. The stock has a market capitalization of $34.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.43 and a beta of 1.05. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $60.89 and a 200 day simple moving average of $62.44. Cognizant Technology Solutions has a 52 week low of $56.73 and a 52 week high of $74.85.
Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ:CTSH) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The information technology service provider reported $1.08 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.05 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $4.25 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.21 billion. Cognizant Technology Solutions had a net margin of 12.60% and a return on equity of 20.23%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.05 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Cognizant Technology Solutions will post 3.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 29th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 19th will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.26%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 18th. Cognizant Technology Solutions’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 19.90%.
About Cognizant Technology Solutions
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, a professional services company, provides consulting and technology, and outsourcing services worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Financial Services; Healthcare; Products and Resources; and Communications, Media and Technology. It offers analytics and artificial intelligence, digital engineering, intelligent process automation, interactive, and hybrid cloud services and solutions; and application development, systems integration, application testing and maintenance, infrastructure, and business process services.
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