e.l.f. Beauty, Inc. (NYSE:ELF) Short Interest Up 9.8% in October

e.l.f. Beauty, Inc. (NYSE:ELF) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,920,000 shares, an increase of 9.8% from the October 15th total of 4,480,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 2,560,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.9 days.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Tarang Amin sold 23,528 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $136.45, for a total transaction of $3,210,395.60. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 106,016 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,465,883.20. This represents a 18.16 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 3.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ELF. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired a new stake in shares of e.l.f. Beauty in the second quarter valued at approximately $6,659,000. Cetera Investment Advisers increased its stake in e.l.f. Beauty by 33.8% during the 2nd quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 39,319 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,285,000 after acquiring an additional 9,939 shares during the period. Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of e.l.f. Beauty by 84.4% in the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 1,259,644 shares of the company’s stock valued at $265,432,000 after purchasing an additional 576,383 shares during the last quarter. Congress Asset Management Co. grew its position in e.l.f. Beauty by 14.2% during the 3rd quarter. Congress Asset Management Co. now owns 503,577 shares of the company’s stock worth $54,905,000 after acquiring an additional 62,480 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC grew its position in e.l.f. Beauty by 55.8% during the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 730,377 shares of the company’s stock worth $79,633,000 after acquiring an additional 261,707 shares during the last quarter. 92.44% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ELF. Bank of America decreased their target price on e.l.f. Beauty from $190.00 to $165.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on e.l.f. Beauty from $167.00 to $154.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. UBS Group decreased their target price on e.l.f. Beauty from $250.00 to $230.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Truist Financial decreased their target price on e.l.f. Beauty from $210.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 16th. Finally, Raymond James reiterated a “strong-buy” rating and issued a $235.00 price target on shares of e.l.f. Beauty in a research report on Monday, July 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, e.l.f. Beauty currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $173.53.

e.l.f. Beauty Stock Up 1.3 %

NYSE:ELF opened at $122.85 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.78. The company has a market cap of $6.92 billion, a PE ratio of 65.58, a PEG ratio of 2.66 and a beta of 1.44. e.l.f. Beauty has a 52-week low of $98.50 and a 52-week high of $221.83. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $111.39 and a 200 day simple moving average of $154.07.

e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE:ELF) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.77 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by $0.34. The firm had revenue of $301.10 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $289.43 million. e.l.f. Beauty had a return on equity of 19.34% and a net margin of 8.87%. The business’s revenue was up 39.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.66 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that e.l.f. Beauty will post 2.8 EPS for the current fiscal year.

e.l.f. Beauty Company Profile

e.l.f. Beauty, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides cosmetic and skin care products under the e.l.f. Cosmetics, e.l.f. Skin, Well People, and Keys Soulcare brand names worldwide. The company offers eye, lip, face, face, paw, and skin care products. It sells its products through national and international retailers and direct-to-consumer channels, which include e-commerce platforms in the United States, and internationally primarily through distributors.