Short Interest in Avantor, Inc. (NYSE:AVTR) Increases By 24.1%

Avantor, Inc. (NYSE:AVTR) was the target of a large growth in short interest in June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 17,670,000 shares, a growth of 24.1% from the May 31st total of 14,240,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 5,410,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.3 days.

Institutional Trading of Avantor

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of AVTR. Graypoint LLC increased its holdings in shares of Avantor by 3.8% during the first quarter. Graypoint LLC now owns 11,414 shares of the company’s stock worth $292,000 after purchasing an additional 423 shares during the period. Vontobel Holding Ltd. increased its stake in Avantor by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 30,215 shares of the company’s stock worth $690,000 after acquiring an additional 591 shares during the period. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its holdings in Avantor by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 18,725 shares of the company’s stock valued at $427,000 after acquiring an additional 685 shares in the last quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp lifted its position in shares of Avantor by 125.3% during the 4th quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 1,248 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 694 shares during the period. Finally, Mackenzie Financial Corp grew its holdings in shares of Avantor by 1.6% during the 4th quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 46,610 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,064,000 after purchasing an additional 747 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 95.08% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AVTR has been the subject of a number of research reports. Evercore ISI lowered their target price on Avantor from $28.00 to $27.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of Avantor from $28.00 to $25.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on shares of Avantor from $27.00 to $26.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 29th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on Avantor from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 18th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Avantor presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $26.29.

Avantor Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:AVTR traded down $0.19 on Tuesday, hitting $20.58. The company had a trading volume of 5,343,405 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,824,563. The stock has a market cap of $13.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.69, a P/E/G ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 1.32. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $23.66 and a 200 day moving average price of $23.81. Avantor has a 1-year low of $16.63 and a 1-year high of $26.16. The company has a current ratio of 1.61, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94.

Avantor (NYSE:AVTR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, April 26th. The company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.20 by $0.02. Avantor had a return on equity of 13.01% and a net margin of 3.79%. The business had revenue of $1.68 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.29 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Avantor will post 1.01 EPS for the current year.

Avantor Company Profile

Avantor, Inc engages in the provision of mission-critical products and services to customers in the biopharma, healthcare, education and government, advanced technologies, and applied materials industries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The company offers materials and consumables, such as purity chemicals and reagents, lab products and supplies, formulated silicone materials, customized excipients, customized single-use assemblies, process chromatography resins and columns, analytical sample prep kits, education and microbiology products, clinical trial kits, peristaltic pumps, and fluid handling tips.