A. O. Smith Co. (NYSE:AOS) Short Interest Update

A. O. Smith Co. (NYSE:AOS) was the target of a large growth in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 3,300,000 shares, a growth of 15.0% from the October 15th total of 2,870,000 shares. Approximately 2.8% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 980,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.4 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of AOS. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System raised its holdings in A. O. Smith by 4.6% in the 1st quarter. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System now owns 142,934 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $12,787,000 after buying an additional 6,307 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its holdings in A. O. Smith by 11.3% in the 1st quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 225,930 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $20,212,000 after buying an additional 22,859 shares during the period. Twin Tree Management LP raised its holdings in A. O. Smith by 188.9% in the 1st quarter. Twin Tree Management LP now owns 737 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $66,000 after buying an additional 1,566 shares during the period. Pinnacle Wealth Planning Services Inc. raised its holdings in A. O. Smith by 52.1% in the 1st quarter. Pinnacle Wealth Planning Services Inc. now owns 4,007 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $358,000 after buying an additional 1,372 shares during the period. Finally, Intech Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in A. O. Smith by 84.8% in the 1st quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 51,518 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $4,609,000 after buying an additional 23,640 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 76.10% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on AOS shares. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of A. O. Smith from $92.00 to $91.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on shares of A. O. Smith from $82.00 to $81.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. UBS Group raised shares of A. O. Smith from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $75.00 to $80.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. StockNews.com raised shares of A. O. Smith from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, DA Davidson cut shares of A. O. Smith from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $80.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, A. O. Smith has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $86.71.

A. O. Smith Stock Down 1.1 %

NYSE AOS opened at $72.23 on Monday. A. O. Smith has a 52 week low of $72.15 and a 52 week high of $92.44. The company has a quick ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 1.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $80.59 and its 200-day simple moving average is $82.23. The firm has a market cap of $10.47 billion, a PE ratio of 19.01, a P/E/G ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 1.17.

A. O. Smith (NYSE:AOS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The industrial products company reported $0.82 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.82. A. O. Smith had a return on equity of 30.09% and a net margin of 14.41%. The business had revenue of $957.80 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $960.36 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.90 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that A. O. Smith will post 3.78 earnings per share for the current year.

A. O. Smith Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 31st were issued a dividend of $0.34 per share. This represents a $1.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 31st. This is a positive change from A. O. Smith’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. A. O. Smith’s payout ratio is currently 35.79%.

About A. O. Smith

A. O. Smith Corporation manufactures and markets residential and commercial gas and electric water heaters, boilers, heat pumps, tanks, and water treatment products in North America, China, Europe, and India. The company offers water heaters for residences, restaurants, hotels, office buildings, laundries, car washes, and small businesses; boilers for hospitals, schools, hotels, and other large commercial buildings, as well as homes, apartments, and condominiums; and water treatment products comprising point-of-entry water softeners, well water solutions, and whole-home water filtration products, and point-of-use carbon and reverse osmosis products for residences, restaurants, hotels, and offices.