Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE:DQ) Short Interest Update

Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE:DQ) saw a large growth in short interest in the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 3,860,000 shares, a growth of 9.3% from the March 15th total of 3,530,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,340,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.9 days.

Institutional Trading of Daqo New Energy

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of DQ. Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in Daqo New Energy by 6.9% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,658,153 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $50,192,000 after buying an additional 107,235 shares during the last quarter. Andra AP fonden lifted its position in Daqo New Energy by 48.1% in the 3rd quarter. Andra AP fonden now owns 133,700 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $4,047,000 after buying an additional 43,400 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its position in Daqo New Energy by 12.2% in the 4th quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 80,987 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $2,154,000 after buying an additional 8,775 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG lifted its position in Daqo New Energy by 75.2% in the 3rd quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 328,745 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $9,951,000 after buying an additional 141,079 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. lifted its position in Daqo New Energy by 4.0% in the 3rd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 147,521 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $4,465,000 after buying an additional 5,639 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 47.22% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Daiwa Capital Markets reiterated an “underperform” rating and set a $25.00 target price on shares of Daqo New Energy in a research note on Friday, March 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Daqo New Energy currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $36.23.

Daqo New Energy Price Performance

DQ stock traded down $0.37 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $23.36. 552,948 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,012,070. The company has a market capitalization of $1.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.32 and a beta of 0.22. Daqo New Energy has a 52-week low of $17.30 and a 52-week high of $48.31. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $23.95 and a 200-day moving average price of $24.13.

Daqo New Energy (NYSE:DQ) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The semiconductor company reported $0.64 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.84 by ($0.20). The company had revenue of $477.13 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $529.40 million. Daqo New Energy had a net margin of 18.24% and a return on equity of 6.42%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $4.71 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Daqo New Energy will post 4.06 EPS for the current year.

Daqo New Energy Company Profile

Daqo New Energy Corp., together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells polysilicon to photovoltaic product manufacturers in the People's Republic of China. Its products are used in ingots, wafers, cells, and modules for solar power solutions. The company was formerly known as Mega Stand International Limited and changed its name to Daqo New Energy Corp.