Despite today's 2.2% jump to $17.73, Rocket may soon be running into resistance as it is now within range of its average analyst target price of $18.5. With an average rating of hold, and analysts assigning target prices from 12.0 to 25.0 dollars per share, investors will be asking themselves if the Diversified Financial stock can sustain this bullish run.
With a short interest of 50.2%, we can infer that the market sentiment on Rocket is negative. Each short position represents an investor's expectation and hope that the stock's price will reverse its present course and start falling.
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 Rocket 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 28.2%, 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 mixed market sentiment regarding Rocket because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a hold rating, an unusually large proportion of its 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 RKT:
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The stock has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $-0.03
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Rocket has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of -590.8 compared to the S&P 500 average of 29.3
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The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 4.76 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 4.74
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Rocket is a Finance company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 15.92 and 1.78 respectively
