Bruker Co. (NASDAQ:BRKR) Short Interest Down 8.3% in March

Bruker Co. (NASDAQ:BRKR) was the target of a large decline in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 3,320,000 shares, a decline of 8.3% from the March 15th total of 3,620,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 789,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.2 days. Currently, 3.7% of the company’s stock are short sold.

Insider Buying and Selling at Bruker

In other Bruker news, Director Hermann Fritz Requardt sold 15,000 shares of Bruker stock in a transaction on Monday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.06, for a total transaction of $1,350,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 23,147 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,084,618.82. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 28.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Bruker

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Bruker by 4.5% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 11,253,314 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $723,588,000 after purchasing an additional 487,688 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Bruker by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 11,135,940 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $716,042,000 after buying an additional 291,386 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in shares of Bruker by 3.1% in the 4th quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 8,080,071 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $593,724,000 after buying an additional 239,336 shares during the period. RTW Investments LP lifted its holdings in shares of Bruker by 14.3% in the 3rd quarter. RTW Investments LP now owns 3,381,703 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $210,680,000 after buying an additional 422,100 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Bruker by 2.2% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,308,939 shares of the medical research company’s stock valued at $260,877,000 after buying an additional 71,574 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.52% of the company’s stock.

Bruker Stock Down 2.2 %

Shares of BRKR stock opened at $83.89 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.80 and a quick ratio of 0.99. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $87.24 and its 200 day moving average price is $73.76. The company has a market cap of $11.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 1.17. Bruker has a 1-year low of $53.79 and a 1-year high of $94.86.

Bruker (NASDAQ:BRKR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The medical research company reported $0.70 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.65 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $844.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $809.35 million. Bruker had a return on equity of 29.94% and a net margin of 14.41%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 19.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.74 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Bruker will post 2.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Bruker Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st were paid a dividend of $0.05 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $0.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. Bruker’s payout ratio is presently 6.85%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Citigroup lifted their price target on Bruker from $80.00 to $95.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Bruker from $63.00 to $81.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Bruker from $94.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Bruker from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $60.00 to $90.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company started coverage on Bruker in a research note on Tuesday, December 19th. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $72.00 target price on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $84.86.

Bruker Company Profile

Bruker Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, and distributes scientific instruments, and analytical and diagnostic solutions in the United States, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Bruker Scientific Instruments (BSI) BioSpin, BSI CALID, BSI Nano, and Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies.