Core Laboratories Inc. (NYSE:CLB) Short Interest Update

Core Laboratories Inc. (NYSE:CLB) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 6,590,000 shares, an increase of 10.0% from the March 15th total of 5,990,000 shares. Currently, 14.2% of the company’s stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 474,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 13.9 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ariel Investments LLC grew its position in shares of Core Laboratories by 5.1% in the 1st quarter. Ariel Investments LLC now owns 8,198,544 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $259,320,000 after acquiring an additional 394,237 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. grew its position in shares of Core Laboratories by 37.8% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 7,927,366 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $184,311,000 after acquiring an additional 2,173,250 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Core Laboratories by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,144,814 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $69,352,000 after purchasing an additional 46,425 shares during the last quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Core Laboratories by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp now owns 2,277,774 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $54,689,000 after purchasing an additional 79,166 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Core Laboratories by 44.4% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,848,741 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $42,983,000 after purchasing an additional 568,196 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.81% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CLB has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on Core Laboratories from $21.00 to $17.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, February 5th. StockNews.com upgraded Core Laboratories from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, January 20th. Finally, Bank of America lowered their price objective on Core Laboratories from $17.00 to $16.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $18.50.

Core Laboratories Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CLB opened at $17.25 on Wednesday. Core Laboratories has a fifty-two week low of $13.82 and a fifty-two week high of $27.94. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $15.97 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $17.88. The company has a quick ratio of 1.72, a current ratio of 2.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.71. The firm has a market cap of $808.34 million, a PE ratio of 20.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 2.40.

Core Laboratories (NYSE:CLB) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The oil and gas company reported $0.19 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.20 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $128.21 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $127.80 million. Core Laboratories had a return on equity of 15.19% and a net margin of 8.03%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.23 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Core Laboratories will post 0.81 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Core Laboratories Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 4th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 12th were given a $0.01 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 9th. This represents a $0.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.23%. Core Laboratories’s payout ratio is 4.65%.

Core Laboratories Company Profile

Core Laboratories Inc provides reservoir description and production enhancement services and products to the oil and gas industry in the United States, and internationally. It operates through Reservoir Description and Production Enhancement segments. The Reservoir Description segment includes the characterization of petroleum reservoir rock and reservoir fluid samples to enhance production and improve recovery of crude oil and gas from its clients' reservoirs.