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

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AYI has been the topic of several analyst reports. Oppenheimer upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Acuity Brands

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Sunbelt Securities Inc. increased its position in Acuity Brands by 2,923.1% during the fourth quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 393 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $116,000 after acquiring an additional 380 shares during the period. Ashford Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth about $13,789,000. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in Acuity Brands by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 154,163 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $45,036,000 after acquiring an additional 493 shares during the period. Vident Advisory LLC increased its position in Acuity Brands by 10.2% during the fourth quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 17,414 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $5,087,000 after acquiring an additional 1,605 shares during the period. Finally, WBI Investments LLC bought a new position in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth about $616,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI traded up $0.87 during trading hours 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 cap of $10.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.30, a PEG ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. The business has a fifty day moving average of $317.10 and a 200-day moving average of $295.77. Acuity Brands has a 12 month low of $217.64 and a 12 month high of $345.30. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.21%. This is a positive change from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 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.