Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) Short Interest Up 9.1% in April

Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) was the target of a large growth in short interest during the month of April. As of April 15th, there was short interest totalling 418,400 shares, a growth of 9.1% from the March 31st total of 383,600 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 128,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.2 days. Currently, 1.9% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Institutional Trading of Astec Industries

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of ASTE. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Astec Industries by 65,426.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 473,756 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $22,319,000 after purchasing an additional 473,033 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new stake in shares of Astec Industries in the third quarter valued at about $13,107,000. SG Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Astec Industries in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,884,000. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL lifted its holdings in shares of Astec Industries by 8.3% in the fourth quarter. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL now owns 1,131,271 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $42,083,000 after purchasing an additional 86,969 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its holdings in shares of Astec Industries by 989.7% in the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 92,681 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $4,366,000 after purchasing an additional 84,176 shares in the last quarter. 93.16% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, StockNews.com upgraded Astec Industries from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 11th.

Astec Industries Trading Down 3.0 %

ASTE stock traded down $1.27 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $41.65. 60,412 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 127,831. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $41.31 and its 200-day moving average price is $37.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 2.41. The company has a market cap of $947.12 million, a PE ratio of 29.12 and a beta of 1.38. Astec Industries has a one year low of $28.97 and a one year high of $56.33.

Astec Industries (NASDAQ:ASTE) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The industrial products company reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.62 by $0.28. The firm had revenue of $337.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $332.33 million. Astec Industries had a return on equity of 9.46% and a net margin of 2.50%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.34 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Astec Industries will post 2.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Astec Industries Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 11th were issued a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, March 8th. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.25%. Astec Industries’s dividend payout ratio is presently 35.37%.

About Astec Industries

Astec Industries, Inc designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets equipment and components used primarily in road building and related construction activities worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Infrastructure Solutions and Materials Solutions. The Infrastructure Solutions segment offers asphalt plants and related components, heaters, concrete dust control systems, asphalt pavers, vaporizers, concrete material handling systems, screeds, heat recovery units, paste back-fill plants, asphalt storage tanks, hot oil heaters, bagging plants, fuel storage tanks, industrial and asphalt burners and systems, custom batch plants, material transfer vehicles, soil stabilizing-reclaiming machinery, blower trucks and trailers, milling machines, soil remediation plants, wood chippers and grinders, pump trailers, concrete batch plants, control systems, liquid terminals, storage equipment and related parts, construction and retrofits, polymer plants, and concrete mixers, as well as engineering and environmental permitting services.