Short Interest in Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) Increases By 17.1%

Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) was the target of a large growth in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,310,000 shares, a growth of 17.1% from the August 31st total of 3,680,000 shares. Approximately 2.3% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 941,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 4.6 days.

Institutional Trading of Textron

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Boston Partners raised its stake in shares of Textron by 1.4% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 7,116,231 shares of the aerospace company’s stock valued at $682,475,000 after acquiring an additional 99,868 shares in the last quarter. LSV Asset Management raised its position in Textron by 6.9% in the 1st quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 4,053,050 shares of the aerospace company’s stock valued at $388,809,000 after purchasing an additional 260,003 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Textron by 6.1% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,808,600 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $241,152,000 after buying an additional 160,923 shares in the last quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP grew its position in shares of Textron by 20.0% during the second quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 1,549,551 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $133,096,000 after buying an additional 258,778 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Textron by 18.9% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,451,293 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $124,608,000 after buying an additional 231,173 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.03% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

TXT has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America boosted their price objective on Textron from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. TD Cowen lowered shares of Textron from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $103.00 to $95.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 25th. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Textron from $84.00 to $87.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, July 19th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of Textron from $111.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, July 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Textron from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, September 12th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Textron has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $101.50.

Textron Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of TXT traded down $0.31 during trading on Monday, reaching $87.44. 30,441 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,073,929. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $88.26 and a 200-day simple moving average of $89.13. The company has a quick ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 1.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47. Textron has a twelve month low of $74.13 and a twelve month high of $97.33. The stock has a market cap of $16.67 billion, a PE ratio of 18.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 1.23.

Textron (NYSE:TXT) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 18th. The aerospace company reported $1.54 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.48 by $0.06. Textron had a net margin of 6.67% and a return on equity of 16.41%. The firm had revenue of $3.53 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.56 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.46 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that Textron will post 6.26 earnings per share for the current year.

Textron Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be given a $0.02 dividend. This represents a $0.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.09%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 13th. Textron’s dividend payout ratio is currently 1.71%.

About Textron

Textron Inc operates in the aircraft, defense, industrial, and finance businesses worldwide. It operates through six segments: Textron Aviation, Bell, Textron Systems, Industrial, Textron eAviation, and Finance. The Textron Aviation segment manufactures, sells, and services business jets, turboprop and piston engine aircraft, and military trainer and defense aircraft; and offers maintenance, inspection, and repair services, as well as sells commercial parts.