Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) Short Interest Update

Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) was the target of a large decline in short interest in the month of April. As of April 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,330,000 shares, a decline of 27.0% from the March 31st total of 4,560,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,700,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.0 days. Approximately 2.0% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently commented on PNR shares. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of Pentair from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on Pentair from $88.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Pentair from $83.00 to $91.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Pentair from $101.00 to $103.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Citigroup lifted their target price on Pentair from $85.00 to $101.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 8th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $89.93.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Pentair

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in Pentair by 191.8% in the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 70,424 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $5,122,000 after buying an additional 46,290 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Pentair by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,882,068 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,287,364,000 after purchasing an additional 204,416 shares during the period. Vest Financial LLC boosted its position in shares of Pentair by 31.7% during the fourth quarter. Vest Financial LLC now owns 450,602 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $32,763,000 after purchasing an additional 108,560 shares in the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale grew its position in shares of Pentair by 8.4% in the 4th quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 348,573 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $25,299,000 after buying an additional 27,122 shares during the period. Finally, Prudential PLC bought a new position in shares of Pentair in the 3rd quarter worth about $566,000. 92.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Pentair Trading Up 1.0 %

PNR stock traded up $0.76 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $79.96. The company had a trading volume of 959,329 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,557,437. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63. Pentair has a 52 week low of $53.88 and a 52 week high of $85.81. The stock has a market cap of $13.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.27, a PEG ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.20. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $80.35 and its 200 day moving average price is $71.89.

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The industrial products company reported $0.94 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.90 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $1.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.01 billion. Pentair had a net margin of 15.30% and a return on equity of 20.16%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.91 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Pentair will post 4.23 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Pentair Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 19th will be given a dividend of $0.23 per share. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.15%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 18th. Pentair’s payout ratio is 24.47%.

About Pentair

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets.