Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) Short Interest Update

Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 9,610,000 shares, an increase of 37.7% from the February 13th total of 6,980,000 shares. Approximately 2.2% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 3,670,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.6 days.

Institutional Trading of Entergy

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Entergy by 101.9% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 52,133,646 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $3,952,773,000 after purchasing an additional 26,312,267 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in Entergy by 142.8% during the fourth quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 17,594,747 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,334,034,000 after purchasing an additional 10,347,926 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its holdings in Entergy by 71.4% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 12,884,421 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $976,895,000 after purchasing an additional 5,368,396 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in Entergy by 90.7% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 12,612,407 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $956,273,000 after purchasing an additional 5,998,760 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp raised its holdings in Entergy by 1.1% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 11,408,776 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,501,509,000 after purchasing an additional 128,667 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.07% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ETR has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Scotiabank lowered their price objective on Entergy from $165.00 to $82.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Entergy from $72.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH upgraded shares of Entergy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $86.50 target price on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. KeyCorp lowered shares of Entergy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Entergy from $87.00 to $98.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $84.11.

Entergy Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ETR traded down $2.39 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $83.06. The stock had a trading volume of 3,849,860 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,255,198. The company has a quick ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 0.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $82.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $74.50. The company has a market capitalization of $35.75 billion, a PE ratio of 34.25, a P/E/G ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 0.68. Entergy has a 1 year low of $50.19 and a 1 year high of $88.38.

Entergy (NYSE:ETR) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The utilities provider reported $0.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.63 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $2.74 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.24 billion. Entergy had a return on equity of 10.68% and a net margin of 8.90%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.26 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Entergy will post 3.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Entergy Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 10th were issued a dividend of $0.60 per share. This represents a $2.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.89%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 10th. Entergy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 98.77%.

Entergy Company Profile

Entergy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the production and retail distribution of electricity in the United States. It generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electric power in portions of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, including the City of New Orleans; and distributes natural gas.