News Co. (NASDAQ:NWS) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

News Co. (NASDAQ:NWS) saw a large increase in short interest in the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,470,000 shares, an increase of 18.9% from the January 15th total of 3,760,000 shares. Approximately 4.4% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 796,100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 5.6 days.

News Stock Performance

NASDAQ NWS traded up $0.56 during trading on Friday, hitting $34.86. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 721,106 shares, compared to its average volume of 744,454. News has a 52 week low of $23.99 and a 52 week high of $34.97. The firm has a market cap of $19.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.75 and a beta of 1.38. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $31.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $29.90. The company has a quick ratio of 1.26, a current ratio of 1.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22.

News (NASDAQ:NWS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The company reported $0.33 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.34 by ($0.01). News had a return on equity of 5.31% and a net margin of 4.22%. Equities research analysts forecast that News will post 0.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

News Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a semi-annual dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 12th will be issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a dividend yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 12th. News’s payout ratio is presently 27.40%.

Institutional Trading of News

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its stake in News by 4.6% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 7,986 shares of the company’s stock valued at $223,000 after buying an additional 348 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its stake in News by 253.3% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,021 shares of the company’s stock valued at $57,000 after buying an additional 1,449 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in News by 101.0% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 496,926 shares of the company’s stock valued at $13,889,000 after buying an additional 249,659 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in News by 28.5% in the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 7,790 shares of the company’s stock valued at $237,000 after buying an additional 1,729 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in News by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 137,034 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,830,000 after buying an additional 2,609 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 14.63% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Seaport Res Ptn raised News to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st.

About News

News Corporation, a media and information services company, creates and distributes authoritative and engaging content, and other products and services for consumers and businesses worldwide. It operates through six segments: Digital Real Estate Services, Subscription Video Services, Dow Jones, Book Publishing, News Media, and Other.