Forestar Group Inc. (NYSE:FOR) Short Interest Up 28.0% in December

Forestar Group Inc. (NYSE:FOR) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 404,000 shares, an increase of 28.0% from the December 15th total of 315,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 126,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.2 days. Currently, 2.1% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Forestar Group from $43.00 to $39.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 6th.

Institutional Trading of Forestar Group

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Rhumbline Advisers lifted its stake in Forestar Group by 4.0% during the second quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 31,098 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $995,000 after purchasing an additional 1,186 shares during the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in Forestar Group by 89.2% during the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 11,408 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $365,000 after purchasing an additional 5,377 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its stake in Forestar Group by 22.5% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 461,388 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $14,760,000 after purchasing an additional 84,861 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Forestar Group by 9.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,438,669 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $78,012,000 after purchasing an additional 201,032 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC lifted its stake in Forestar Group by 4.9% during the second quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 154,080 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $4,929,000 after purchasing an additional 7,180 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 35.50% of the company’s stock.

Forestar Group Stock Down 1.7 %

NYSE:FOR traded down $0.46 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $26.80. The stock had a trading volume of 161,634 shares, compared to its average volume of 121,565. The company has a current ratio of 1.61, a quick ratio of 1.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. Forestar Group has a 1-year low of $24.81 and a 1-year high of $40.92. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $27.68 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $30.08. The company has a market cap of $1.36 billion, a PE ratio of 6.68 and a beta of 1.74.

Forestar Group (NYSE:FOR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The oil and gas exploration company reported $1.60 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.31 by $0.29. Forestar Group had a net margin of 13.48% and a return on equity of 13.59%. The business had revenue of $551.40 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $503.76 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.44 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up .3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Forestar Group will post 3.67 EPS for the current year.

About Forestar Group

Forestar Group Inc operates as a residential lot development company in the United States. The company acquires land and develops infrastructure for single-family residential communities. It sells its residential single-family finished lots to local, regional, and national homebuilders. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Arlington, Texas.