Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ) Short Interest Up 16.3% in December

Invesco Ltd. (NYSE:IVZ) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 10,860,000 shares, an increase of 16.3% from the November 30th total of 9,340,000 shares. Approximately 2.5% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 3,650,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.0 days.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Invesco

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of IVZ. Raymond James & Associates grew its stake in shares of Invesco by 34.8% during the 2nd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 89,610 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,341,000 after acquiring an additional 23,120 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its position in Invesco by 1.2% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,489,388 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $37,241,000 after purchasing an additional 30,016 shares during the period. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank increased its stake in shares of Invesco by 5.3% in the second quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 64,791 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $969,000 after purchasing an additional 3,232 shares in the last quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. raised its position in shares of Invesco by 22.1% in the second quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 16,394 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $245,000 after purchasing an additional 2,965 shares during the period. Finally, Signaturefd LLC lifted its stake in shares of Invesco by 6.6% during the 2nd quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 27,982 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $419,000 after buying an additional 1,731 shares in the last quarter. 66.09% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Invesco from $17.50 to $19.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Invesco from $18.00 to $19.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Invesco from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of Invesco from $17.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, October 21st. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price target on shares of Invesco from $18.00 to $19.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Invesco presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $18.88.

Invesco Stock Performance

Shares of Invesco stock opened at $17.48 on Wednesday. Invesco has a 12 month low of $14.16 and a 12 month high of $18.94. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.86 billion, a P/E ratio of -19.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.43. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $17.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $16.94. The company has a current ratio of 4.91, a quick ratio of 4.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66.

Invesco (NYSE:IVZ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The asset manager reported $0.44 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.43 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.11 billion. Invesco had a negative net margin of 3.00% and a positive return on equity of 8.83%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 20.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.35 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Invesco will post 1.7 EPS for the current year.

Invesco Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 3rd. Investors of record on Thursday, November 14th were paid a $0.205 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, November 14th. This represents a $0.82 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.69%. Invesco’s payout ratio is -89.13%.

About Invesco

Invesco Ltd. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm provides its services to retail clients, institutional clients, high-net worth clients, public entities, corporations, unions, non-profit organizations, endowments, foundations, pension funds, financial institutions, and sovereign wealth funds.