FirstCash Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCFS) Sees Significant Increase in Short Interest

FirstCash Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCFS) saw a large increase in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 718,600 shares, an increase of 15.1% from the October 15th total of 624,400 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 249,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.9 days. Approximately 1.9% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO R Douglas Orr sold 2,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.68, for a total transaction of $211,360.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 88,715 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,375,401.20. This represents a 2.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Douglas Richard Rippel sold 2,864 shares of FirstCash stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.01, for a total value of $343,708.64. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 4,743,159 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $569,226,511.59. The trade was a 0.06 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 16,154 shares of company stock worth $1,909,562 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 14.77% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC bought a new stake in FirstCash during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of FirstCash during the second quarter valued at approximately $54,000. CWM LLC lifted its holdings in shares of FirstCash by 157.5% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 569 shares of the company’s stock worth $65,000 after buying an additional 348 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in shares of FirstCash by 28.9% in the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 900 shares of the company’s stock worth $103,000 after buying an additional 202 shares in the last quarter. Finally, EntryPoint Capital LLC boosted its position in shares of FirstCash by 134.3% during the first quarter. EntryPoint Capital LLC now owns 841 shares of the company’s stock worth $107,000 after acquiring an additional 482 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.30% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on FCFS. TD Cowen cut their price objective on FirstCash from $134.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, October 28th. Stephens began coverage on FirstCash in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $137.00 price target for the company.

FirstCash Trading Down 1.2 %

Shares of FirstCash stock opened at $105.77 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.87, a current ratio of 4.31 and a quick ratio of 3.23. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.73 billion, a PE ratio of 19.59 and a beta of 0.64. FirstCash has a 1-year low of $101.62 and a 1-year high of $133.64. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $111.90 and its 200-day simple moving average is $112.64.

FirstCash (NASDAQ:FCFS) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The company reported $1.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.62 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $837.30 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $843.94 million. FirstCash had a return on equity of 14.97% and a net margin of 7.29%. FirstCash’s quarterly revenue was up 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.56 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that FirstCash will post 6.61 earnings per share for the current year.

FirstCash Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 27th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 15th will be paid a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 15th. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.44%. FirstCash’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 28.15%.

FirstCash Company Profile

FirstCash Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates retail pawn stores in the United States, Mexico, and rest of Latin America. The company operates in three segments: U.S. Pawn, Latin America Pawn, and Retail POS Payment Solutions segments. Its pawn stores lend money on the collateral of pledged personal property, including jewelry, electronics, tools, appliances, sporting goods, and musical instruments; and retails merchandise acquired through collateral forfeitures on forfeited pawn loans and over-the-counter purchases of merchandise directly from customers.