FUTU Stock Approaching 52-Week Peak

By Blake Campbell • Tuesday, April 23 15:11 • Permanent Link

Rocketing to a price of $62.03 during today's afternoon trading session, shares of Futu are still -9.96% below their average target price of $68.89. Could there be more upside potential for the stock? Analysts are giving FUTU an average rating of buy and target prices ranging from $48.13 to $85.97 dollars per share.

The market seems to share this rosy outlook, since Futu has a short interest of only 2.6%. This represents the percentage of the share float that is being shorted, and each short position stands for an investor's expectation that the price of the stock will go down in the future.

Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.

We can make inferences about the market sentiment surrounding Futu by analyzing its rate of institutional ownership. If institutions such as hedge funds and pension funds are the primary shareholders of a corporation, it most likely means that its shares are a good investment according to those institutions' analysts.

At 30.0%, the rate of institutional ownership is average, indicating that a sufficient number of institutions have concluded that it is a stable investment. Beware, however, that the rate of institutional ownership could also indicate an ongoing proxy battle or takeover attempt -- so you should also periodically check the news about a stock whose institutional ownership you are tracking.

In conclusion, we see positive market sentiment regarding Futu because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a buy rating, an average amount of shares sold short, and only a small number of institutional investors. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.

Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about FUTU:

The stock has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $3.9
Futu has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 15.9 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 0.35 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
Futu is a Finance company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 12.38 and 1.58 respectively

The above analysis is intended for educational purposes only and was performed on the basis of publicly available data. It is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any buy, sell, or other recommendations mentioned in the article are direct quotations of consensus recommendations from the analysts covering the stock, and do not represent the opinions of Market Inference or its writers. Past performance, accounting data, and inferences about market position and corporate valuation are not reliable indicators of future price movements. Market Inference does not provide financial advice. Investors should conduct their own review and analysis of any company of interest before making an investment decision.