AZZ Inc. (NYSE:AZZ) Short Interest Up 6.0% in January

AZZ Inc. (NYSE:AZZ) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in the month of January. As of January 15th, there was short interest totalling 527,200 shares, an increase of 6.0% from the December 31st total of 497,200 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 187,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.8 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of AZZ by 13.6% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,223,391 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $266,284,000 after purchasing an additional 385,240 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of AZZ by 2.6% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,100,189 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $90,887,000 after buying an additional 27,710 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP purchased a new position in shares of AZZ in the third quarter worth about $61,139,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of AZZ by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 675,603 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $55,823,000 after acquiring an additional 10,072 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Harvey Partners LLC boosted its holdings in AZZ by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. Harvey Partners LLC now owns 666,000 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $55,018,000 after acquiring an additional 12,000 shares during the period. 90.93% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their target price on AZZ from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, AZZ has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $96.80.

AZZ Stock Performance

NYSE AZZ opened at $87.47 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 59.10, a P/E/G ratio of 1.19 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.85, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a current ratio of 1.77. AZZ has a 52-week low of $63.52 and a 52-week high of $97.98. The company has a fifty day moving average of $87.45 and a 200-day moving average of $82.82.

AZZ (NYSE:AZZ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 7th. The industrial products company reported $1.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $403.65 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $394.30 million. AZZ had a return on equity of 16.99% and a net margin of 7.94%. The company’s revenue was up 5.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.19 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that AZZ will post 5.13 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AZZ Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 20th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 30th will be given a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 30th. AZZ’s payout ratio is currently 45.95%.

AZZ Company Profile

AZZ Inc provides hot-dip galvanizing and coil coating solutions in North America. It offers metal finishing solutions for corrosion protection, including hot-dip galvanizing, spin galvanizing, powder coating, anodizing, and plating to steel fabrication and other industries, as well as to fabricators or manufacturers that provide services to the transmission and distribution, bridge and highway, petrochemical, and general industrial markets; and original equipment manufacturers.