CGI Inc. (NYSE:GIB) Short Interest Up 23.8% in March

CGI Inc. (NYSE:GIB) (TSE:GIB.A) was the target of a large growth in short interest in March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,600,000 shares, a growth of 23.8% from the February 28th total of 2,100,000 shares. Approximately 1.3% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 256,100 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 10.2 days.

Institutional Trading of CGI

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in CGI by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,942,779 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $869,067,000 after purchasing an additional 128,285 shares in the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI lifted its stake in CGI by 23.6% during the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,513,733 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $519,072,000 after acquiring an additional 861,771 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its holdings in CGI by 17.3% during the 4th quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 3,843,289 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $419,976,000 after acquiring an additional 567,868 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in CGI by 29.3% in the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 2,992,111 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $327,007,000 after acquiring an additional 678,431 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in CGI during the fourth quarter worth about $286,970,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 66.68% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on GIB. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on CGI from $140.00 to $135.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. UBS Group raised their target price on CGI from $118.00 to $122.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $192.00 price target on shares of CGI in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $156.75.

CGI Price Performance

NYSE:GIB opened at $102.04 on Thursday. CGI has a 52 week low of $96.75 and a 52 week high of $122.79. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $109.76 and its two-hundred day moving average is $111.23. The company has a market capitalization of $23.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.45, a P/E/G ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.04, a current ratio of 1.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28.

CGI (NYSE:GIB) (TSE:GIB.A) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $1.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.41. CGI had a net margin of 11.72% and a return on equity of 19.32%. Equities analysts expect that CGI will post 5.79 EPS for the current year.

CGI Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th were issued a $0.1039 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 14th. This represents a $0.42 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.41%. CGI’s dividend payout ratio is currently 7.41%.

About CGI

CGI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) and business process services. Its services include the business and strategic IT consulting, systems integration, and software solutions. The company also provides application development, modernization and maintenance, holistic enterprise digitization, automation, hybrid and cloud management, and business process services; intellectual property-based solutions; business consulting; managed IT services; and IT infrastructure services.