Short Interest in AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) Drops By 6.7%

AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) saw a large decrease in short interest in December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,540,000 shares, a decrease of 6.7% from the December 15th total of 1,650,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 434,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.5 days.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, VP Stephen E. Wakefield sold 5,362 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.99, for a total value of $702,368.38. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 4,558 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $597,052.42. This represents a 54.05 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, VP Casey Kidwell sold 4,796 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $136.38, for a total transaction of $654,078.48. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 4,953 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $675,490.14. This represents a 49.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 57,329 shares of company stock valued at $7,663,726. 18.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC lifted its position in AAON by 39.1% in the third quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC now owns 288,581 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $31,121,000 after buying an additional 81,111 shares during the last quarter. Wolverine Trading LLC bought a new stake in AAON in the third quarter worth $471,000. Amalgamated Bank lifted its position in AAON by 65.2% in the second quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 35,367 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $3,085,000 after buying an additional 13,964 shares during the last quarter. Caldwell Investment Management Ltd. bought a new stake in AAON in the fourth quarter worth $1,099,000. Finally, Geneva Capital Management LLC lifted its position in AAON by 1.5% in the third quarter. Geneva Capital Management LLC now owns 1,698,207 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $183,135,000 after buying an additional 24,384 shares during the last quarter. 70.81% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on AAON shares. Baird R W raised shares of AAON from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of AAON from $130.00 to $138.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Sidoti lowered shares of AAON from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $102.00 to $111.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. StockNews.com raised shares of AAON from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, DA Davidson increased their price objective on shares of AAON from $102.00 to $150.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $133.00.

AAON Trading Down 1.0 %

AAON stock opened at $130.18 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $129.02 and a 200 day moving average price of $108.71. AAON has a fifty-two week low of $69.54 and a fifty-two week high of $144.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.79 and a current ratio of 3.06. The firm has a market cap of $10.58 billion, a PE ratio of 57.35 and a beta of 0.87.

AAON (NASDAQ:AAON) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The construction company reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.57 by $0.06. AAON had a net margin of 15.78% and a return on equity of 24.98%. The firm had revenue of $327.25 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $315.80 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.64 earnings per share. AAON’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that AAON will post 2.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AAON Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 19th. Investors of record on Friday, November 29th were issued a $0.08 dividend. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 29th. AAON’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 14.10%.

About AAON

AAON, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and selling air conditioning and heating equipment in the United States and Canada. The company operates through three segments: AAON Oklahoma, AAON Coil Products, and BASX. It offers rooftop units, data center cooling solutions, cleanroom systems, chillers, packaged outdoor mechanical rooms, air handling units, makeup air units, energy recovery units, condensing units, geothermal/water-source heat pumps, coils, and controls.