Guess?, Inc. (NYSE:GES) Short Interest Update

Guess?, Inc. (NYSE:GES) saw a significant decline in short interest in December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 7,020,000 shares, a decline of 10.3% from the November 30th total of 7,830,000 shares. Currently, 23.6% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 907,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 7.7 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GES. Quest Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Guess? by 186.2% in the second quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 1,305 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 849 shares in the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of Guess? by 11.5% during the 3rd quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 16,627 shares of the company’s stock worth $334,000 after purchasing an additional 1,720 shares in the last quarter. Verity Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Guess? by 14.0% during the third quarter. Verity Asset Management Inc. now owns 16,234 shares of the company’s stock worth $327,000 after purchasing an additional 1,989 shares during the period. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC raised its position in shares of Guess? by 2.1% in the third quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC now owns 113,775 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,290,000 after buying an additional 2,288 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quarry LP raised its position in shares of Guess? by 216.9% in the third quarter. Quarry LP now owns 3,359 shares of the company’s stock valued at $68,000 after buying an additional 2,299 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 61.74% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on GES shares. UBS Group reduced their price target on Guess? from $18.00 to $16.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Telsey Advisory Group lowered their price target on Guess? from $21.00 to $18.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Guess? currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $25.00.

Guess? Stock Performance

NYSE GES traded up $0.20 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $14.06. 845,304 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,126,227. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18, a current ratio of 1.54 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $16.24 and a 200-day moving average price of $19.21. The stock has a market capitalization of $723.49 million, a P/E ratio of 11.82 and a beta of 1.89. Guess? has a fifty-two week low of $13.31 and a fifty-two week high of $33.50.

Guess? (NYSE:GES) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The company reported $0.34 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $738.52 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $747.36 million. Guess? had a net margin of 3.19% and a return on equity of 23.29%. The firm’s revenue was up 13.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.49 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Guess? will post 1.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Guess? Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th were issued a dividend of $0.30 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 11th. This represents a $1.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 8.53%. Guess?’s payout ratio is currently 100.84%.

About Guess?

Guess?, Inc designs, markets, distributes, and licenses lifestyle collections of apparel and accessories for men, women, and children. It operates through five segments: Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale, Europe, Asia, and Licensing. The company’s clothing collection includes jeans, pants, skirts, dresses, shorts, blouses, shirts, jackets, activewear, knitwear, and intimate apparel.