Short Interest in ICON Public Limited (NASDAQ:ICLR) Expands By 18.5%

ICON Public Limited (NASDAQ:ICLR) saw a large growth in short interest during the month of November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,280,000 shares, a growth of 18.5% from the October 31st total of 1,080,000 shares. Currently, 1.6% of the company’s shares are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 1,190,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.1 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ICLR has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Redburn Atlantic initiated coverage on shares of ICON Public in a report on Monday, October 14th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $311.00 price objective on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on shares of ICON Public from $370.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 25th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of ICON Public from $360.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. StockNews.com lowered shares of ICON Public from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 19th. Finally, TD Cowen cut their price objective on shares of ICON Public from $369.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 25th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $292.45.

ICON Public Trading Up 1.6 %

ICLR opened at $213.56 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.25, a P/E/G ratio of 1.56 and a beta of 1.25. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $249.33 and its 200-day moving average is $293.92. ICON Public has a 52-week low of $183.38 and a 52-week high of $347.72. The company has a quick ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35.

ICON Public (NASDAQ:ICLR) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The medical research company reported $3.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.72 by ($0.37). The firm had revenue of $2.03 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.13 billion. ICON Public had a net margin of 9.00% and a return on equity of 11.91%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.10 EPS. Analysts expect that ICON Public will post 13.42 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of ICON Public

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in ICLR. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of ICON Public by 17.4% during the first quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 283 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $95,000 after buying an additional 42 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its position in shares of ICON Public by 50.0% during the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 261 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $82,000 after buying an additional 87 shares in the last quarter. ORG Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of ICON Public during the second quarter worth approximately $59,000. Liontrust Investment Partners LLP grew its position in shares of ICON Public by 19.5% during the second quarter. Liontrust Investment Partners LLP now owns 119,728 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $37,531,000 after buying an additional 19,546 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Whittier Trust Co. grew its position in shares of ICON Public by 8.6% during the second quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 3,579 shares of the medical research company’s stock worth $1,122,000 after buying an additional 284 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 95.61% of the company’s stock.

ICON Public Company Profile

ICON Public Limited Company, a clinical research organization, provides outsourced development and commercialization services in Ireland, rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. The company specializes in the strategic development, management, and analysis of programs that support various stages of the clinical development process from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies.