AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ:AUDC) Short Interest Down 15.7% in January

AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ:AUDC) saw a large drop in short interest in January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 132,500 shares, a drop of 15.7% from the January 15th total of 157,200 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 106,300 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.2 days. Approximately 0.6% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Institutional Trading of AudioCodes

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Blue Trust Inc. grew its holdings in shares of AudioCodes by 151.8% during the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 3,624 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 2,185 shares during the last quarter. R Squared Ltd acquired a new position in AudioCodes in the 4th quarter worth approximately $97,000. Norges Bank purchased a new position in AudioCodes during the 4th quarter worth approximately $120,000. DGS Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in AudioCodes by 72.8% during the 3rd quarter. DGS Capital Management LLC now owns 21,672 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $211,000 after acquiring an additional 9,133 shares during the period. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of AudioCodes in the 4th quarter valued at $406,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.05% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AUDC has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded shares of AudioCodes from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Needham & Company LLC lifted their price objective on AudioCodes from $11.00 to $12.50 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price target on shares of AudioCodes from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th.

AudioCodes Trading Down 1.3 %

AUDC opened at $11.75 on Monday. AudioCodes has a 12 month low of $7.70 and a 12 month high of $14.04. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $10.30 and a 200-day moving average price of $9.86. The firm has a market cap of $355.09 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.50 and a beta of 0.80.

AudioCodes (NASDAQ:AUDC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.22 by $0.09. AudioCodes had a net margin of 6.32% and a return on equity of 10.47%. On average, equities research analysts forecast that AudioCodes will post 0.7 EPS for the current year.

AudioCodes Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a semi-annual dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 6th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.18 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This represents a dividend yield of 3%. AudioCodes’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 72.00%.

AudioCodes Company Profile

AudioCodes Ltd. provides advanced communications software, products, and productivity solutions for the digital workplace worldwide. The company offers solutions, products, and services for unified communications, contact centers, hosted business services, Voice.AI, and service provider businesses. Its products include session border controllers, life cycle management solutions, VoIP network routing solutions, media gateways and servers, multi-service business routers, IP phones solutions, and value-added applications, as well as professional services.