Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT) Short Interest Update

Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT) saw a large decrease in short interest in December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 10,730,000 shares, a decrease of 7.1% from the December 15th total of 11,550,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 4,140,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.6 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Copart from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th.

Copart Stock Performance

CPRT stock traded up $0.50 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $56.90. The company had a trading volume of 3,335,342 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,104,842. Copart has a fifty-two week low of $47.51 and a fifty-two week high of $64.38. The company has a market capitalization of $54.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.07 and a beta of 1.33. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $59.07 and a 200 day simple moving average of $54.71.

Copart (NASDAQ:CPRT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The business services provider reported $0.37 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.37. Copart had a net margin of 31.92% and a return on equity of 18.96%. The business had revenue of $1.15 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.34 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts predict that Copart will post 1.57 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Copart

In other Copart news, Chairman A Jayson Adair sold 251,423 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $63.79, for a total transaction of $16,038,273.17. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now owns 14,436,557 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $920,907,971.03. This trade represents a 1.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Thomas N. Tryforos sold 83,310 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.86, for a total value of $5,153,556.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 7,850 shares in the company, valued at approximately $485,601. This trade represents a 91.39 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 650,213 shares of company stock worth $39,199,813 in the last three months. 9.68% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Copart

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CPRT. Kieckhefer Group LLC acquired a new stake in Copart in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,962,000. Sanctuary Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Copart by 21.2% during the third quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 52,767 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $2,765,000 after acquiring an additional 9,222 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Copart by 1.6% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 18,763,926 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $979,547,000 after acquiring an additional 291,580 shares in the last quarter. Kinsale Capital Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Copart by 17.7% during the 3rd quarter. Kinsale Capital Group Inc. now owns 89,979 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $4,715,000 after purchasing an additional 13,554 shares during the period. Finally, Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. acquired a new position in Copart during the second quarter worth about $5,418,000. 85.78% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Copart Company Profile

Copart, Inc provides online auctions and vehicle remarketing services. It offers a range of services for processing and selling vehicles over the Internet through its Virtual Bidding Third Generation Internet auction-style sales technology on behalf of vehicle sellers, insurance companies, banks and finance companies, charities, and fleet operators and dealers, as well as individual owners.