NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) Sees Large Decline in Short Interest

NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) was the target of a large drop in short interest during the month of February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 2,180,000 shares, a drop of 19.0% from the February 13th total of 2,690,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 587,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.7 days. Currently, 3.5% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on NICE. Rosenblatt Securities dropped their price target on shares of NICE from $225.00 to $200.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Citigroup cut their price objective on shares of NICE from $279.00 to $228.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 24th. StockNews.com downgraded NICE from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, February 17th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their target price on NICE from $176.00 to $161.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Barclays lowered their target price on NICE from $286.00 to $226.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $231.64.

NICE Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NICE stock traded up $0.96 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $151.98. 585,289 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 563,371. The firm has a market cap of $9.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.12. NICE has a 52-week low of $137.19 and a 52-week high of $270.73. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $160.17 and its 200 day simple moving average is $169.67.

NICE (NASDAQ:NICE) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The technology company reported $2.25 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.96 by ($0.71). The firm had revenue of $721.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $718.47 million. NICE had a net margin of 16.18% and a return on equity of 16.17%. As a group, equities analysts expect that NICE will post 9.85 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NICE

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC purchased a new position in NICE in the fourth quarter valued at about $313,808,000. Boston Partners grew its stake in NICE by 10.0% in the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 1,670,327 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $283,349,000 after purchasing an additional 151,528 shares during the last quarter. Menora Mivtachim Holdings LTD. grew its stake in NICE by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Menora Mivtachim Holdings LTD. now owns 1,660,037 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $281,941,000 after purchasing an additional 36,865 shares during the last quarter. HMI Capital Management L.P. grew its stake in NICE by 12.8% in the fourth quarter. HMI Capital Management L.P. now owns 1,642,770 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $279,008,000 after purchasing an additional 186,600 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CCLA Investment Management grew its stake in NICE by 14.1% in the fourth quarter. CCLA Investment Management now owns 704,494 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $119,517,000 after purchasing an additional 87,003 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 63.34% of the company’s stock.

About NICE

NICE Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides cloud platforms for AI-driven digital business solutions worldwide. It offers CXone, a cloud native open platform; Enlighten, an AI engine for the customer engagement market; and smart self service enable organizations to address consumers' needs; and journey orchestration solutions that empower organizations to connect and route customers to deal with the customer's request, and connects them using real time AI-based routing.