HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSTM) Sees Significant Drop in Short Interest

HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSTM) saw a large decrease in short interest during the month of May. As of May 31st, there was short interest totalling 262,800 shares, a decrease of 5.2% from the May 15th total of 277,300 shares. Currently, 1.1% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 115,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.3 days.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Scott Fenstermacher sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.19, for a total value of $26,190.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 13,008 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $340,679.52. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 20.60% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On HealthStream

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Parallel Advisors LLC boosted its position in HealthStream by 79.4% during the 4th quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 1,132 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 501 shares during the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale acquired a new stake in shares of HealthStream in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Diversified Trust Co acquired a new stake in shares of HealthStream in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $213,000. EntryPoint Capital LLC boosted its holdings in shares of HealthStream by 80.4% in the 1st quarter. EntryPoint Capital LLC now owns 8,045 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $214,000 after buying an additional 3,586 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Maryland State Retirement & Pension System acquired a new stake in shares of HealthStream in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $241,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.58% of the company’s stock.

HealthStream Stock Performance

Shares of HSTM opened at $27.60 on Thursday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $26.71 and a 200 day simple moving average of $26.63. HealthStream has a 52-week low of $20.47 and a 52-week high of $29.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $839.04 million, a PE ratio of 47.59, a P/E/G ratio of 4.27 and a beta of 0.38.

HealthStream (NASDAQ:HSTM) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 22nd. The technology company reported $0.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.10 by $0.07. HealthStream had a return on equity of 5.21% and a net margin of 6.30%. The business had revenue of $72.80 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $71.88 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.12 EPS. HealthStream’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that HealthStream will post 0.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

HealthStream Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 6th were given a dividend of $0.028 per share. This represents a $0.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.41%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, May 3rd. HealthStream’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 18.97%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, StockNews.com cut HealthStream from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $32.00.

About HealthStream

HealthStream, Inc provides Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based applications for healthcare organizations in the United States. The company's solutions help healthcare organizations in meeting their ongoing clinical development, talent management, training, education, assessment, competency management, safety and compliance, and scheduling, as well as provider credentialing, privileging, and enrollment needs.