Silicom Ltd (NASDAQ:SILC) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

Silicom Ltd (NASDAQ:SILC) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest in the month of August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totaling 136,047 shares, a growth of 91.2% from the August 15th total of 71,137 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 218,333 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.6 days. Currently, 3.2% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have weighed in on SILC. Needham & Company LLC upgraded shares of Silicom from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $60.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 2nd. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Silicom in a report on Thursday, July 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Silicom presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $60.00.

Insider Transactions at Silicom

In related news, Director Yeshayhu Orbach sold 2,969 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.00, for a total value of $133,605.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Eran Gilad sold 7,000 shares of Silicom stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $44.45, for a total transaction of $311,150.00. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders have sold 48,041 shares of company stock worth $2,331,789. Insiders own 25.38% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Silicom

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SILC. Nano Cap New Millennium Growth Fund L P bought a new position in Silicom during the fourth quarter valued at about $2,639,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new stake in Silicom in the first quarter worth about $537,000. First Wilshire Securities Management Inc. boosted its stake in Silicom by 3.6% in the first quarter. First Wilshire Securities Management Inc. now owns 315,642 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $6,660,000 after acquiring an additional 10,834 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new position in Silicom in the second quarter valued at about $34,000. 52.85% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Silicom Price Performance

Shares of SILC stock traded up $1.84 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $42.86. The company had a trading volume of 139,150 shares, compared to its average volume of 126,829. The company has a market cap of $246.43 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -24.82 and a beta of 1.57. Silicom has a 12 month low of $13.34 and a 12 month high of $52.95. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $42.61 and a 200-day simple moving average of $36.51.

Silicom (NASDAQ:SILC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The technology company reported ($0.16) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.24) by $0.08. Silicom had a negative return on equity of 8.37% and a negative net margin of 12.98%.The business had revenue of $23.81 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $20.58 million.

About Silicom

Silicom Ltd. is an Israeli technology company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets high-performance networking and data infrastructure solutions. Its products are used to improve network visibility, security, performance and reliability in data centers, telecommunications networks, cloud environments and enterprise systems.

The company’s product portfolio includes network interface cards, intelligent and programmable adapters, server connectivity solutions, network bypass products, packet-processing and traffic-management platforms, and specialized hardware for network security and performance acceleration.