Short Interest in Veritex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VBTX) Drops By 19.3%

Veritex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VBTX) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest in the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,340,000 shares, a decline of 19.3% from the January 15th total of 1,660,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 412,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.2 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Veritex

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV purchased a new position in Veritex during the 4th quarter worth $256,000. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Veritex by 8.2% during the 4th quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 444,515 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $12,073,000 after acquiring an additional 33,566 shares during the period. Tudor Investment Corp ET AL lifted its position in Veritex by 94.1% during the 4th quarter. Tudor Investment Corp ET AL now owns 138,005 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $3,748,000 after acquiring an additional 66,899 shares during the period. Quarry LP raised its stake in shares of Veritex by 117.0% during the 4th quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,528 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $42,000 after buying an additional 824 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Aquatic Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Veritex during the 4th quarter valued at about $143,000. 88.31% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

VBTX has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Stephens reduced their price objective on Veritex from $34.00 to $31.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on Veritex from $27.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered Veritex from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. StockNews.com upgraded Veritex from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Hovde Group upgraded Veritex from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $31.50 price target on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $31.50.

Veritex Price Performance

NASDAQ:VBTX opened at $26.58 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.63 and a beta of 1.38. Veritex has a 1 year low of $18.08 and a 1 year high of $31.62. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $27.13 and a 200-day simple moving average of $26.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 0.95 and a quick ratio of 0.94.

Veritex (NASDAQ:VBTX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 28th. The financial services provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.56 by ($0.02). Veritex had a return on equity of 7.59% and a net margin of 13.44%. Equities analysts forecast that Veritex will post 2.26 EPS for the current year.

Veritex Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be issued a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.01%. Veritex’s payout ratio is 41.03%.

About Veritex

Veritex Holdings, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Veritex Community Bank that provides various commercial banking products and services to small and medium-sized businesses, and professionals. The company accepts deposit products include demand, savings, money market, and time accounts. Its loan products include commercial real estate and general commercial, mortgage warehouse loans, residential real estate, construction and land, farmland, paycheck protection program, 1-4 family residential, agricultural, multi-family residential, and consumer loans, as well as purchased receivables financing.