No one could ignore Infosys's price drop during morning trading session, as the stock fell to $22.52, logging a -4.0% underperformance of the S&P 500. The stock is still trading within range of its average target price of $23.41, which may prove to be a resistance point to further declines. Analysts have given the Data Processing Services stock target prices ranging from 17.0 to 27.1 dollars per share, with an average rating of buy.
The market seems to share this rosy outlook, since Infosys has a short interest of only 2.2%. 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.
When a stock is sold short, it means an investor has borrowed shares of the stock from their broker, and then sold them at the going market price. The investor hopes for the price to decline, so that they might buy those shares back at a lower price in the future. Once they do, they can return the borrowed shares to their broker, and keep the profit they made on the transaction.
We can make inferences about the market sentiment surrounding Infosys 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 12.3%, 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.
Overall, there is mixed market sentiment towards Infosys because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a buy rating, an average amount of shares sold short, and a very small number of institutional investors. Investors should not base their decisions on market sentiment only, they should also be aware of a stock's fundamentals before committing.
At a glance, here are some essential statistics you may want to know about INFY:
-
It has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $0.77 per share
-
Infosys has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 29.2 while the S&P 500 average is 29.3
-
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 8.64 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 4.74
-
Infosys is a Technology company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 30.01 and 3.91 respectively
