Short Interest in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Declines By 11.8%

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) was the recipient of a large drop in short interest in the month of February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 755,300 shares, a drop of 11.8% from the January 31st total of 856,500 shares. Currently, 2.5% of the company’s stock are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 301,500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.5 days.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on AYI. Oppenheimer upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Acuity Brands

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Ballentine Partners LLC grew its stake in Acuity Brands by 3.9% in the 4th quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 911 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $266,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 4,142 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,210,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.3% in the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 293 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $86,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 13.1% in the fourth quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 398 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $116,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the period. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.2% during the 4th quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 951 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $278,000 after purchasing an additional 47 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of Acuity Brands stock traded up $3.16 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $280.00. 347,450 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 259,743. The company has a market cap of $8.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week high of $345.30. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $315.35 and its 200 day simple moving average is $301.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.72 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.24%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 5.01%.

About Acuity Brands

Acuity Brands, Inc provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL); and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG). The ABL segment provides commercial, architectural, and specialty lighting solutions, as well as lighting controls and components for various indoor and outdoor applications under the A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch.