ArcBest Co. (NASDAQ:ARCB) Short Interest Up 7.6% in March

ArcBest Co. (NASDAQ:ARCB) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,420,000 shares, a growth of 7.6% from the March 15th total of 1,320,000 shares. Currently, 6.2% of the company’s shares are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 294,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.8 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ARCB has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on shares of ArcBest from $153.00 to $159.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. StockNews.com raised shares of ArcBest from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of ArcBest from $155.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of ArcBest from $119.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of ArcBest from $133.00 to $149.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, ArcBest currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $151.54.

Insider Buying and Selling at ArcBest

In other ArcBest news, insider Erin K. Gattis sold 2,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $141.58, for a total value of $283,160.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 32,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,565,530.26. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 1.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of ArcBest by 2.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,714,834 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $218,544,000 after acquiring an additional 55,946 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of ArcBest by 6.3% in the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,067,783 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $85,957,000 after acquiring an additional 63,476 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley grew its position in shares of ArcBest by 2.3% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 568,392 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $39,810,000 after acquiring an additional 12,534 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of ArcBest by 0.6% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 516,478 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $47,733,000 after acquiring an additional 2,885 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its position in shares of ArcBest by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 462,444 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $55,590,000 after acquiring an additional 4,354 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 99.27% of the company’s stock.

ArcBest Stock Up 0.5 %

ARCB traded up $0.76 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $149.95. 353,145 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 301,705. ArcBest has a 1-year low of $82.18 and a 1-year high of $153.60. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $140.45 and its two-hundred day moving average is $122.93. The stock has a market cap of $3.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.96, a PEG ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.49. The company has a quick ratio of 1.26, a current ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

ArcBest (NASDAQ:ARCB) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The transportation company reported $2.47 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.22 by $0.25. ArcBest had a net margin of 4.41% and a return on equity of 15.91%. The business had revenue of $1.09 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.45 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that ArcBest will post 10.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

ArcBest Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 16th were given a $0.12 dividend. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.32%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 15th. ArcBest’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 6.07%.

About ArcBest

ArcBest Corporation, an integrated logistics company, engages in the provision of ground, air, and ocean transportation solutions. It operates through two segments: Asset-Based and Asset-Light. The Asset-Based segment provides less-than-truckload (LTL) services, that transports general commodities, such as food, textiles, apparel, furniture, appliances, chemicals, non-bulk petroleum products, rubber, plastics, metal and metal products, wood, glass, automotive parts, machinery, and miscellaneous manufactured products.