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

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

HQI has been the topic of several recent research reports. Barrington Research upped their price objective on HireQuest from $16.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 22nd. DA Davidson reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $19.00 price objective on shares of HireQuest in a research report on Friday, August 9th.

HireQuest Price Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $193.62 million, a PE ratio of 36.39 and a beta of 1.01. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $13.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $13.14.

HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.15 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.12 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $8.68 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.40 million. HireQuest had a return on equity of 9.15% and a net margin of 14.27%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.15 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that HireQuest, Inc. will post 0.59 earnings per share for the current year.

HireQuest Announces Dividend

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On HireQuest

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

About HireQuest

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.