Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) Short Interest Update

Pentair plc (NYSE:PNR) saw a significant decrease in short interest in November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,420,000 shares, a decrease of 23.2% from the October 31st total of 3,150,000 shares. Approximately 1.5% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 1,430,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.7 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

PNR has been the subject of a number of research reports. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on shares of Pentair from $101.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Pentair from $106.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Mizuho raised their price target on Pentair from $100.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. UBS Group boosted their price target on Pentair from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Pentair from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $106.38.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Philip M. Rolchigo sold 3,588 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $99.67, for a total value of $357,615.96. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 19,232 shares in the company, valued at $1,916,853.44. This represents a 15.72 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Corporate insiders own 1.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Pentair

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. California State Teachers Retirement System lifted its position in shares of Pentair by 0.4% in the 1st quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 260,531 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $22,260,000 after acquiring an additional 977 shares during the period. LRI Investments LLC bought a new position in Pentair in the first quarter worth $58,000. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its stake in Pentair by 222.8% during the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 50,653 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $4,328,000 after buying an additional 34,959 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Pentair by 64.3% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 6,943 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $593,000 after acquiring an additional 2,718 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky grew its stake in shares of Pentair by 443.7% in the 1st quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 77,215 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $6,598,000 after purchasing an additional 63,012 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.37% of the company’s stock.

Pentair Stock Performance

Shares of Pentair stock traded up $0.03 during trading on Friday, reaching $108.99. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 636,089 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,538,775. Pentair has a one year low of $63.38 and a one year high of $110.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 1.60. The firm has a market cap of $18.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.19. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $100.85 and its 200-day moving average price is $89.03.

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The industrial products company reported $1.09 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.02. Pentair had a return on equity of 20.48% and a net margin of 16.29%. The company had revenue of $993.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $988.53 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.94 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Pentair will post 4.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Pentair Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 18th were given a dividend of $0.23 per share. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.84%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 18th. Pentair’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.00%.

Pentair Company Profile

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.