AudioCodes (NASDAQ:AUDC) Rating Lowered to Buy at StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of AudioCodes (NASDAQ:AUDC) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a report released on Thursday morning.

AUDC has been the topic of several other reports. Barclays dropped their price objective on AudioCodes from $12.00 to $10.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, May 8th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a buy rating and issued a $14.00 price objective on shares of AudioCodes in a report on Wednesday, July 31st.

AudioCodes Stock Down 1.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:AUDC opened at $10.79 on Thursday. AudioCodes has a 52-week low of $7.14 and a 52-week high of $14.45. The stock has a market cap of $327.15 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.97 and a beta of 0.88. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $10.46 and a 200-day moving average price of $11.51.

AudioCodes (NASDAQ:AUDC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 7th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.10 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $60.08 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $62.66 million. AudioCodes had a return on equity of 10.42% and a net margin of 5.61%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that AudioCodes will post 0.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AudioCodes Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a Semi-Annual dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, August 29th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 15th will be paid a $0.18 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 3.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 15th. AudioCodes’s dividend payout ratio is presently 100.00%.

Institutional Trading of AudioCodes

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Essex Investment Management Co. LLC boosted its stake in shares of AudioCodes by 1.6% in the first quarter. Essex Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 174,521 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $2,276,000 after acquiring an additional 2,702 shares during the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd lifted its position in AudioCodes by 26.8% during the first quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 17,460 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $228,000 after buying an additional 3,691 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in AudioCodes by 11.3% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 53,105 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $551,000 after buying an additional 5,389 shares in the last quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund lifted its position in AudioCodes by 163.8% during the fourth quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 15,828 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $191,000 after buying an additional 9,827 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in AudioCodes during the first quarter worth approximately $159,000. 68.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About AudioCodes

AudioCodes Ltd. provides advanced communications software, products, and productivity solutions for the digital workplace worldwide. The company offers solutions, products, and services for unified communications, contact centers, hosted business services, Voice.AI, and service provider businesses. Its products include session border controllers, life cycle management solutions, VoIP network routing solutions, media gateways and servers, multi-service business routers, IP phones solutions, and value-added applications, as well as professional services.