HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) Trading Down 1.3% – Should You Sell?

Shares of HireQuest, Inc. (NASDAQ:HQI) traded down 1.3% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $13.80 and last traded at $13.83. 11,554 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 17% from the average session volume of 13,965 shares. The stock had previously closed at $14.01.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have weighed in on HQI. Barrington Research upped their target price on HireQuest from $16.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 22nd. DA Davidson restated a “buy” rating and issued a $19.00 price objective on shares of HireQuest in a report on Friday, August 9th.

HireQuest Stock Performance

The firm has a market cap of $192.92 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.09 and a beta of 1.01. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $13.90 and its 200-day moving average is $13.14.

HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.15 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by $0.03. HireQuest had a return on equity of 9.15% and a net margin of 14.27%. The company had revenue of $8.68 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.40 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.15 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that HireQuest, Inc. will post 0.59 EPS for the current year.

HireQuest Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 16th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 2nd were paid a $0.06 dividend. This represents a $0.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 30th. HireQuest’s payout ratio is 63.16%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

An institutional investor recently raised its position in HireQuest stock. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in HireQuest, Inc. (NASDAQ:HQI) by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 90,113 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 772 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp owned approximately 0.64% of HireQuest worth $1,113,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. 12.00% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

HireQuest Company Profile

HireQuest, Inc provides temporary staffing services in the United States. It offers staffing services, including direct-dispatch, executive search, consultant, unskilled and semi-skilled industrial and construction personnel, clerical and administrative personnel, and permanent placement services, as well as commercial and non-CDL drivers, and skilled personnel in the medical and dental industries.