Archrock, Inc. (NYSE:AROC) Short Interest Up 9.7% in June

Archrock, Inc. (NYSE:AROC) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest during the month of June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,750,000 shares, a growth of 9.7% from the May 31st total of 5,240,000 shares. Approximately 4.3% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 1,430,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.0 days.

Institutional Trading of Archrock

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Trexquant Investment LP boosted its stake in shares of Archrock by 56.0% during the 4th quarter. Trexquant Investment LP now owns 110,519 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,702,000 after acquiring an additional 39,686 shares during the last quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new stake in Archrock during the fourth quarter valued at about $1,058,000. Chase Investment Counsel Corp purchased a new stake in Archrock in the fourth quarter worth about $1,909,000. Sei Investments Co. raised its stake in shares of Archrock by 37.7% in the fourth quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 5,113,865 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $78,753,000 after buying an additional 1,399,309 shares during the period. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH lifted its position in shares of Archrock by 302.9% during the 4th quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 912,784 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $14,057,000 after buying an additional 686,242 shares in the last quarter. 95.45% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Archrock Stock Performance

AROC stock opened at $20.23 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $19.72 and its 200 day simple moving average is $18.23. The company has a current ratio of 1.26, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.78. Archrock has a 12-month low of $9.57 and a 12-month high of $21.60. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.16 billion, a PE ratio of 24.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 1.53.

Archrock (NYSE:AROC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The energy company reported $0.26 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.22 by $0.04. Archrock had a return on equity of 15.30% and a net margin of 12.54%. The firm had revenue of $268.49 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $260.51 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.10 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 3.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Archrock will post 1.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Archrock Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, May 14th. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 7th were issued a $0.165 dividend. This represents a $0.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.26%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, May 6th. Archrock’s payout ratio is 79.52%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently issued reports on AROC. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on Archrock from $20.00 to $23.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 2nd. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Archrock from $20.00 to $21.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 28th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Archrock from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $19.67.

Archrock Company Profile

Archrock, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Contract Operations and Aftermarket Services. It engages in the designing, sourcing, owning, installing, operating, servicing, repairing, and maintaining of its owned fleet of natural gas compression equipment to provide natural gas compression services.