Data I/O Corporation (NASDAQ:DAIO) Short Interest Up 1,012.8% in May

Data I/O Corporation (NASDAQ:DAIO) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totaling 29,534 shares, a growth of 1,012.8% from the April 30th total of 2,654 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 77,129 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.4 days. Currently, 0.3% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have issued reports on the company. Zacks Research upgraded Data I/O from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH upgraded Data I/O to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Data I/O in a report on Monday, April 20th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $5.11.

Institutional Trading of Data I/O

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in DAIO. DRW Securities LLC bought a new position in Data I/O during the 4th quarter worth $37,000. NewEdge Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Data I/O by 45.4% in the second quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 22,402 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $69,000 after acquiring an additional 7,000 shares during the period. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC boosted its position in shares of Data I/O by 24.5% in the fourth quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 43,472 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $138,000 after acquiring an additional 8,555 shares during the period. Kovack Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of Data I/O by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Kovack Advisors Inc. now owns 268,906 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $852,000 after acquiring an additional 5,675 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Penbrook Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Data I/O by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Penbrook Management LLC now owns 356,850 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,131,000 after acquiring an additional 4,100 shares in the last quarter. 36.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Data I/O Stock Performance

Shares of DAIO opened at $3.38 on Thursday. Data I/O has a 52 week low of $2.16 and a 52 week high of $3.57. The firm has a market cap of $31.73 million, a P/E ratio of -4.02 and a beta of 1.09. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $2.66 and its 200 day simple moving average is $2.86.

Data I/O (NASDAQ:DAIO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 15th. The electronics maker reported ($0.34) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.16) by ($0.18). Data I/O had a negative return on equity of 54.33% and a negative net margin of 41.85%.The company had revenue of $3.25 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.00 million. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Data I/O will post -0.41 earnings per share for the current year.

About Data I/O

Data I/O Corporation is a provider of device programming solutions for semiconductor and microcontroller manufacturers, test houses, contract manufacturers and electronics design engineers. The company’s product portfolio includes universal and site-specific programmers, automated programming systems and software tools that enable high-volume production, development and field programming of non-volatile memories and microcontrollers. Data I/O’s solutions are designed to support a wide range of programmable devices, including Flash, EPROM, EEPROM, PLDs, FPGAs and automotive-grade microcontrollers.

The company’s flagship technologies include its high-speed FlashCORE III programming engines and the SB-OS-A automated handling system, which together streamline production workflows by providing scalable, multi-site programming capabilities.