Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Short Interest Up 8.3% in January

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) was the target of a significant increase in short interest during the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 856,500 shares, an increase of 8.3% from the January 15th total of 790,800 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 314,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.7 days. Currently, 2.8% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on AYI. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 42.0% during the third quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,784,000 after purchasing an additional 1,917 shares during the last quarter. Aigen Investment Management LP acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth $484,000. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth $813,000. Finally, Entropy Technologies LP acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the third quarter worth $462,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of Acuity Brands stock traded up $0.87 on Tuesday, hitting $329.96. The company had a trading volume of 147,186 shares, compared to its average volume of 314,777. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.30, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $345.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $317.10 and a 200-day moving average of $295.77.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.21%. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

Acuity Brands Company Profile

Acuity Brands, Inc provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL); and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG). The ABL segment provides commercial, architectural, and specialty lighting solutions, as well as lighting controls and components for various indoor and outdoor applications under the A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch.