NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) Short Interest Down 19.0% in February

NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ:NICE) was the recipient of a large decline in short interest in the month of February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 2,180,000 shares, a decline of 19.0% from the February 13th total of 2,690,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 587,400 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 3.7 days. Currently, 3.5% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on NICE. Rosenblatt Securities cut their price objective on shares of NICE from $225.00 to $200.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 21st. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $200.00 price objective (down previously from $215.00) on shares of NICE in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Cantor Fitzgerald cut their price objective on shares of NICE from $176.00 to $161.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 21st. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $200.00 price objective on shares of NICE in a report on Wednesday. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of NICE from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 17th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NICE has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $231.64.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NICE

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of NICE. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC bought a new position in shares of NICE during the fourth quarter valued at $313,808,000. FIL Ltd bought a new position in shares of NICE during the fourth quarter valued at $70,465,000. New South Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of NICE during the fourth quarter valued at $54,980,000. Deutsche Bank AG raised its stake in shares of NICE by 95.7% during the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 606,341 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $102,981,000 after acquiring an additional 296,514 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Perpetual Ltd bought a new position in NICE during the fourth quarter worth $31,792,000. Institutional investors own 63.34% of the company’s stock.

NICE Price Performance

Shares of NICE stock opened at $151.98 on Thursday. NICE has a fifty-two week low of $137.19 and a fifty-two week high of $270.73. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.48, a P/E/G ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.12. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $160.17 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $169.67.

NICE (NASDAQ:NICE) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The technology company reported $2.25 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.96 by ($0.71). The company had revenue of $721.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $718.47 million. NICE had a net margin of 16.18% and a return on equity of 16.17%. On average, analysts expect that NICE will post 9.85 earnings per share for the current year.

About NICE

NICE Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides cloud platforms for AI-driven digital business solutions worldwide. It offers CXone, a cloud native open platform; Enlighten, an AI engine for the customer engagement market; and smart self service enable organizations to address consumers' needs; and journey orchestration solutions that empower organizations to connect and route customers to deal with the customer's request, and connects them using real time AI-based routing.