Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI) Raised to “Hold” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report released on Wednesday morning.

Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on CCOI. TD Cowen lifted their target price on Cogent Communications from $81.00 to $84.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. KeyCorp lifted their target price on Cogent Communications from $85.00 to $88.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. TheStreet raised Cogent Communications from a c+ rating to a b rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on Cogent Communications from $74.00 to $73.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 6th. Finally, Bank of America cut Cogent Communications from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $85.00 to $75.00 in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Cogent Communications currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $77.57.

Cogent Communications Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of Cogent Communications stock opened at $63.29 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.24, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a current ratio of 1.38. Cogent Communications has a 52 week low of $57.35 and a 52 week high of $86.00. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $68.84 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $69.36. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.00 billion, a PE ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.39.

Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The technology company reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.95) by $0.79. The company had revenue of $272.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $275.82 million. Cogent Communications had a negative return on equity of 23.66% and a net margin of 135.34%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Cogent Communications will post -3.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cogent Communications Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 9th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a $0.965 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This is a positive change from Cogent Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.96. This represents a $3.86 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.10%. Cogent Communications’s payout ratio is presently 14.43%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cogent Communications

In other Cogent Communications news, CRO James Bubeck sold 1,920 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.62, for a total value of $147,110.40. Following the sale, the executive now directly owns 54,822 shares in the company, valued at $4,200,461.64. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other Cogent Communications news, CRO James Bubeck sold 1,920 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.62, for a total value of $147,110.40. Following the sale, the executive now directly owns 54,822 shares in the company, valued at $4,200,461.64. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Dave Schaeffer sold 8,826 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.55, for a total value of $640,326.30. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 4,815,764 shares in the company, valued at $349,383,678.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 69,320 shares of company stock worth $4,669,997 over the last ninety days. 11.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cogent Communications

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CCOI. FMR LLC grew its position in Cogent Communications by 58.9% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 710,612 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $43,987,000 after buying an additional 263,313 shares in the last quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. grew its position in Cogent Communications by 107.2% during the third quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 46,822 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,898,000 after buying an additional 24,226 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates grew its position in Cogent Communications by 7.0% during the fourth quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 630,300 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $47,941,000 after buying an additional 41,104 shares in the last quarter. River Road Asset Management LLC grew its position in Cogent Communications by 9.5% during the fourth quarter. River Road Asset Management LLC now owns 417,801 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $31,778,000 after buying an additional 36,288 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Qube Research & Technologies Ltd purchased a new position in Cogent Communications during the third quarter worth about $1,943,000. 92.45% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Cogent Communications

Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides high-speed Internet access, private network, and data center colocation space services in North America, Europe, Oceania, South America, and Africa. The company offers on-net Internet access and private network services to law firms, financial services firms, and advertising and marketing firms, as well as heath care providers, educational institutions and other professional services businesses, other Internet service providers, telephone companies, cable television companies, web hosting companies, media service providers, mobile phone operators, content delivery network companies, and commercial content and application service providers.