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

Forestar Group Inc. (NYSE:FOR) saw a significant growth in short interest during the month of December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 404,000 shares, a growth of 28.0% from the December 15th total of 315,700 shares. Approximately 2.1% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 126,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.2 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of FOR. Rhumbline Advisers increased its holdings in shares of 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 valued at $995,000 after purchasing an additional 1,186 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 5,377 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc. grew its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 84,861 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 201,032 shares during the period. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 7,180 shares during the period. 35.50% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Citigroup cut their target price on Forestar Group from $43.00 to $39.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 6th.

Forestar Group Stock Performance

FOR stock traded down $0.46 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $26.80. The company had a trading volume of 161,634 shares, compared to its average volume of 121,565. The company has a quick ratio of 1.61, a current ratio of 1.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.68 and a beta of 1.74. Forestar Group has a one year low of $24.81 and a one year high of $40.92. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $27.68 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $30.08.

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

Forestar Group Company Profile

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.