Short Interest in Guess?, Inc. (NYSE:GES) Drops By 5.2%

Guess?, Inc. (NYSE:GES) was the target of a significant decline in short interest in June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 8,900,000 shares, a decline of 5.2% from the May 31st total of 9,390,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,540,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 5.8 days. Approximately 32.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Insider Buying and Selling at Guess?

In other Guess? news, CEO Carlos Alberini sold 211,797 shares of Guess? stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.32, for a total transaction of $6,421,685.04. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 1,269,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $38,499,668.96. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 30.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Guess? by 15.7% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,879,570 shares of the company’s stock valued at $122,090,000 after purchasing an additional 525,064 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of Guess? by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,503,612 shares of the company’s stock valued at $80,795,000 after purchasing an additional 85,562 shares during the period. LSV Asset Management boosted its stake in shares of Guess? by 5.0% during the fourth quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 1,447,889 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,388,000 after purchasing an additional 69,500 shares during the period. Hennessy Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Guess? by 14.1% during the first quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. now owns 1,141,100 shares of the company’s stock valued at $35,910,000 after purchasing an additional 141,000 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Guess? by 7.3% during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 978,648 shares of the company’s stock valued at $22,568,000 after purchasing an additional 66,578 shares during the period. 61.74% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. B. Riley reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $37.00 price objective (up previously from $33.00) on shares of Guess? in a research report on Monday, April 8th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Guess? from $24.00 to $29.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Guess? from $32.00 to $29.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 23rd. StockNews.com cut shares of Guess? from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, June 3rd. Finally, Telsey Advisory Group restated a “market perform” rating and issued a $30.00 price target on shares of Guess? in a research report on Wednesday, May 29th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $31.25.

Guess? Trading Up 1.5 %

Shares of GES opened at $19.94 on Wednesday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $23.87 and its 200 day moving average is $24.78. Guess? has a fifty-two week low of $17.92 and a fifty-two week high of $33.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.07 billion, a PE ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 1.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 1.57.

Guess? (NYSE:GES) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 30th. The company reported ($0.27) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.40) by $0.13. The company had revenue of $591.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $574.64 million. Guess? had a net margin of 7.97% and a return on equity of 26.92%. Guess?’s quarterly revenue was up 3.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.07) earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Guess? will post 2.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Guess? Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 28th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 12th were paid a dividend of $0.30 per share. This represents a $1.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.02%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 12th. Guess?’s payout ratio is 35.82%.

Guess? declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Monday, April 1st that permits the company to buyback $200.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to repurchase up to 14.7% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Guess? Company Profile

Guess?, Inc designs, markets, distributes, and licenses lifestyle collections of apparel and accessories for men, women, and children. It operates through five segments: Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale, Europe, Asia, and Licensing. The company's clothing collection includes jeans, pants, skirts, dresses, shorts, blouses, shirts, jackets, activewear, knitwear, and intimate apparel.