Brokerages Set Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) Price Target at $77.14

Shares of Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the seven brokerages that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $77.14.

CCOI has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Bank of America downgraded shares of Cogent Communications from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $75.00 to $65.00 in a research note on Wednesday, August 21st. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $74.00 price objective on shares of Cogent Communications in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Cogent Communications from $62.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, October 4th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Cogent Communications from $70.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, August 19th. Finally, KeyCorp increased their price objective on shares of Cogent Communications from $80.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th.

Cogent Communications Trading Down 0.5 %

CCOI stock opened at $84.50 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43, a quick ratio of 2.20 and a current ratio of 2.20. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $74.44 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.71. Cogent Communications has a 52 week low of $50.80 and a 52 week high of $86.00. The company has a market capitalization of $4.14 billion, a PE ratio of 3.35 and a beta of 0.41.

Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The technology company reported ($0.68) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($1.27) by $0.59. The business had revenue of $260.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $264.32 million. Cogent Communications had a net margin of 4.26% and a negative return on equity of 32.14%. Cogent Communications’s revenue was up 8.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($0.13) earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cogent Communications will post -4.46 earnings per share for the current year.

Cogent Communications Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 6th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 22nd were issued a $0.985 dividend. This represents a $3.94 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 22nd. This is a positive change from Cogent Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.98. Cogent Communications’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 15.61%.

Insider Activity at Cogent Communications

In related news, CEO Dave Schaeffer sold 60,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.82, for a total value of $4,369,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 4,373,038 shares in the company, valued at $318,444,627.16. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Dave Schaeffer sold 60,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.82, for a total value of $4,369,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 4,373,038 shares in the company, valued at $318,444,627.16. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, VP John B. Chang sold 1,400 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $71.67, for a total transaction of $100,338.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 71,580 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,130,138.60. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 64,870 shares of company stock worth $4,716,057 in the last quarter. 11.40% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cogent Communications

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. increased its position in Cogent Communications by 46.2% during the 2nd quarter. EdgePoint Investment Group Inc. now owns 1,537,196 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $86,759,000 after purchasing an additional 485,628 shares during the period. Harspring Capital Management LLC increased its position in Cogent Communications by 6.0% during the 2nd quarter. Harspring Capital Management LLC now owns 1,176,500 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $66,402,000 after purchasing an additional 66,500 shares during the period. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans increased its position in Cogent Communications by 2,739.1% during the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 1,035,261 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $58,430,000 after purchasing an additional 998,796 shares during the period. Capital World Investors grew its position in shares of Cogent Communications by 327.7% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 981,623 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $64,129,000 after buying an additional 752,133 shares during the period. Finally, Hood River Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Cogent Communications by 18.9% during the 2nd quarter. Hood River Capital Management LLC now owns 874,174 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $49,338,000 after buying an additional 138,680 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.45% of the company’s stock.

About Cogent Communications

Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides high-speed Internet access, private network, and data center colocation space services in North America, Europe, Oceania, South America, and Africa. The company offers on-net Internet access and private network services to law firms, financial services firms, and advertising and marketing firms, as well as heath care providers, educational institutions and other professional services businesses, other Internet service providers, telephone companies, cable television companies, web hosting companies, media service providers, mobile phone operators, content delivery network companies, and commercial content and application service providers.