Short Interest in Hawkins, Inc. (NASDAQ:HWKN) Drops By 10.7%

Hawkins, Inc. (NASDAQ:HWKN) was the target of a large decline in short interest in the month of September. As of September 30th, there was short interest totalling 395,200 shares, a decline of 10.7% from the September 15th total of 442,600 shares. Approximately 2.1% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 131,500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.0 days.

Institutional Trading of Hawkins

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of HWKN. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in shares of Hawkins by 71.8% in the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 402 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $51,000 after buying an additional 168 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new stake in shares of Hawkins in the 3rd quarter worth $100,000. USA Financial Formulas raised its stake in shares of Hawkins by 35.1% in the 3rd quarter. USA Financial Formulas now owns 885 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $113,000 after buying an additional 230 shares in the last quarter. Shell Asset Management Co. raised its stake in shares of Hawkins by 36.9% in the 1st quarter. Shell Asset Management Co. now owns 2,342 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $180,000 after buying an additional 631 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Meeder Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Hawkins during the first quarter worth $212,000. Institutional investors own 69.71% of the company’s stock.

Hawkins Stock Performance

Hawkins stock traded up $0.19 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $134.42. 64,220 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 128,019. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $122.60 and a 200 day moving average price of $100.36. The company has a quick ratio of 1.44, a current ratio of 2.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The company has a market cap of $2.82 billion, a PE ratio of 37.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.54 and a beta of 0.74. Hawkins has a one year low of $53.64 and a one year high of $135.59.

Hawkins (NASDAQ:HWKN) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.38 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.01 by $0.37. The firm had revenue of $255.88 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $254.30 million. Hawkins had a return on equity of 20.16% and a net margin of 8.75%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Hawkins will post 4.14 EPS for the current year.

Hawkins Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 16th were paid a $0.18 dividend. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 16th. This is an increase from Hawkins’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.16. Hawkins’s payout ratio is currently 20.06%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, BWS Financial downgraded Hawkins from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $122.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday.

About Hawkins

Hawkins, Inc operates as a specialty chemical and ingredients company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Industrial, Water Treatment, and Health and Nutrition. The Industrial segment offers industrial chemicals, products, and services to agriculture, chemical processing, electronics, energy, food, pharmaceutical, and plating industries.