Short Interest in Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. (NYSE:AXTA) Declines By 8.6%

Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. (NYSE:AXTA) saw a significant decline in short interest during the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,810,000 shares, a decline of 8.6% from the March 15th total of 6,360,000 shares. Currently, 2.7% of the company’s stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 1,950,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 3.0 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AXTA. BlackRock Inc. raised its stake in shares of Axalta Coating Systems by 65.4% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 25,806,208 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $781,670,000 after buying an additional 10,208,408 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Axalta Coating Systems by 1.4% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 23,208,795 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $788,403,000 after acquiring an additional 322,393 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its holdings in Axalta Coating Systems by 11.7% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 13,470,860 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $362,366,000 after acquiring an additional 1,415,723 shares during the period. Shapiro Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Axalta Coating Systems by 12.8% in the 1st quarter. Shapiro Capital Management LLC now owns 9,477,301 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $232,952,000 after purchasing an additional 1,074,872 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ariel Investments LLC boosted its position in Axalta Coating Systems by 23.8% in the 1st quarter. Ariel Investments LLC now owns 7,398,739 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $181,861,000 after purchasing an additional 1,420,653 shares in the last quarter. 98.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have commented on AXTA. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Axalta Coating Systems from $35.00 to $38.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Axalta Coating Systems in a research note on Friday, March 1st. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Axalta Coating Systems from $31.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. UBS Group downgraded Axalta Coating Systems from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $35.00 to $36.00 in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price target on Axalta Coating Systems from $38.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $35.70.

Axalta Coating Systems Stock Performance

Shares of AXTA stock traded down $0.16 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $31.54. The stock had a trading volume of 1,705,038 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,915,826. The company has a current ratio of 1.98, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96. Axalta Coating Systems has a 1-year low of $25.03 and a 1-year high of $34.53. The firm has a market cap of $6.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.28, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.51. The business’s fifty day moving average is $32.68 and its 200-day moving average is $31.49.

Axalta Coating Systems (NYSE:AXTA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.44 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $1.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.29 billion. Axalta Coating Systems had a return on equity of 20.70% and a net margin of 5.16%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.38 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Axalta Coating Systems will post 1.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Axalta Coating Systems Company Profile

Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., through its subsidiaries, manufactures, markets, and distributes high-performance coatings systems in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The company operates through two segments, Performance Coatings and Mobility Coatings.