Brokerages Set Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) Price Target at $80.25

Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the eight research firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, two have assigned a hold recommendation, four have assigned a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $80.25.

CCOI has been the subject of several research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on Cogent Communications from $62.00 to $71.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, October 4th. UBS Group started coverage on shares of Cogent Communications in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $102.00 price target on the stock. Bank of America lowered shares of Cogent Communications from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $75.00 to $65.00 in a research report on Wednesday, August 21st. Citigroup lifted their target price on Cogent Communications from $70.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 19th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $74.00 price target on shares of Cogent Communications in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, VP John B. Chang sold 1,400 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.67, for a total transaction of $100,338.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 71,580 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,130,138.60. This represents a 1.92 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Blake Bath sold 6,220 shares of Cogent Communications stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $83.69, for a total value of $520,551.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 10,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $836,900. This represents a 38.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 20,736 shares of company stock worth $1,677,159 in the last 90 days. 11.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CCOI. Ipswich Investment Management Co. Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Cogent Communications by 4.6% in the 2nd quarter. Ipswich Investment Management Co. Inc. now owns 40,894 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,308,000 after purchasing an additional 1,805 shares during the last quarter. Salvus Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Cogent Communications by 48.7% during the 2nd quarter. Salvus Wealth Management LLC now owns 29,011 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,637,000 after acquiring an additional 9,504 shares during the period. ARS Investment Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cogent Communications during the 2nd quarter valued at $621,000. Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cogent Communications by 144.8% in the 2nd quarter. Clear Harbor Asset Management LLC now owns 15,766 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $890,000 after purchasing an additional 9,326 shares during the period. Finally, waypoint wealth counsel bought a new position in shares of Cogent Communications in the 2nd quarter worth $238,000. 92.45% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Cogent Communications Stock Up 0.2 %

Cogent Communications stock opened at $76.71 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.87, a current ratio of 2.03 and a quick ratio of 2.03. Cogent Communications has a fifty-two week low of $50.80 and a fifty-two week high of $86.76. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $80.97 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $70.62. The firm has a market cap of $3.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 98.35 and a beta of 0.39.

Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The technology company reported ($1.33) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($1.34) by $0.01. The business had revenue of $257.20 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $258.69 million. Cogent Communications had a negative return on equity of 36.31% and a net margin of 3.73%. The firm’s revenue was down 6.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned ($1.13) EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Cogent Communications will post -4.53 earnings per share for the current year.

Cogent Communications Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 6th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 22nd were issued a $0.995 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 22nd. This is a boost from Cogent Communications’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.99. This represents a $3.98 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.19%. Cogent Communications’s dividend payout ratio is presently 510.26%.

Cogent Communications Company Profile

Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides high-speed Internet access, private network, and data center colocation space services in North America, Europe, Oceania, South America, and Africa. The company offers on-net Internet access and private network services to law firms, financial services firms, and advertising and marketing firms, as well as heath care providers, educational institutions and other professional services businesses, other Internet service providers, telephone companies, cable television companies, web hosting companies, media service providers, mobile phone operators, content delivery network companies, and commercial content and application service providers.