Short Interest in ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS) Declines By 17.9%

ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS - Get Free Report) was the target of a large decline in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 567,700 shares, a decline of 17.9% from the April 30th total of 691,400 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 215,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.6 days. Approximately 2.2% of the company's shares are short sold.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC raised its position in ePlus by 91.1% during the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 342 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 163 shares in the last quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp raised its holdings in shares of ePlus by 256.8% during the 4th quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 421 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 303 shares in the last quarter. Quarry LP boosted its holdings in ePlus by 1,000.0% in the fourth quarter. Quarry LP now owns 473 shares of the software maker's stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 430 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc raised its holdings in ePlus by 377.9% during the first quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 712 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 563 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of ePlus in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $60,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.80% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of ePlus from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Saturday, May 24th.

ePlus Stock Down 1.9%

NASDAQ PLUS traded down $1.36 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $70.84. 124,674 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 212,376. The company has a current ratio of 1.83, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $62.99 and a 200-day simple moving average of $69.97. The company has a market cap of $1.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.07, a P/E/G ratio of 1.83 and a beta of 1.12. ePlus has a 1-year low of $53.83 and a 1-year high of $106.98.

ePlus (NASDAQ:PLUS - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 22nd. The software maker reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $498.11 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $523.85 million. ePlus had a net margin of 4.93% and a return on equity of 11.23%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that ePlus will post 3.78 EPS for the current year.

ePlus Company Profile

ePlus inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) solutions that enable organizations to optimize their IT environment and supply chain processes in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Technology and Financing. The Technology segment offers hardware, perpetual and subscription software, maintenance, software assurance, and internally provided and outsourced services; managed services or infrastructure and cloud; and enhanced maintenance support, service desk, storage-as-a-service, cloud hosted and managed, and managed security services; and professional, staff augmentation, cloud consulting, consulting, and security services.