Short Interest in National Bank of Canada (OTCMKTS:NTIOF) Declines By 24.9%

National Bank of Canada (OTCMKTS:NTIOF - Get Free Report) was the target of a large drop in short interest in May. As of May 31st, there was short interest totalling 7,317,100 shares, a drop of 24.9% from the May 15th total of 9,741,300 shares. Currently, 1.9% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 75,400 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 97.0 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTIOF has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Scotiabank upgraded shares of National Bank of Canada to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 15th. Cibc World Mkts lowered shares of National Bank of Canada from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research report on Friday, April 4th. CIBC reiterated an "outperform" rating on shares of National Bank of Canada in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. National Bankshares cut National Bank of Canada from a "speculative buy" rating to an "underperform" rating in a research note on Friday, April 4th. Finally, Cormark lowered National Bank of Canada from a "moderate buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold".

National Bank of Canada Stock Performance

Shares of NTIOF opened at $99.42 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. The firm's fifty day simple moving average is $90.87 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $89.01. National Bank of Canada has a 12 month low of $74.21 and a 12 month high of $100.53. The stock has a market capitalization of $38.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.15 and a beta of 1.01.

National Bank of Canada (OTCMKTS:NTIOF - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 28th. The financial services provider reported $2.00 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.71 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $2.64 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.33 billion. National Bank of Canada had a return on equity of 16.83% and a net margin of 18.73%. As a group, analysts predict that National Bank of Canada will post 7.63 EPS for the current year.

National Bank of Canada Cuts Dividend

The company also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 1st were given a $0.7975 dividend. This represents a yield of 3.86%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 31st. National Bank of Canada's payout ratio is 41.93%.

About National Bank of Canada

National Bank of Canada provides financial services to individuals, businesses, institutional clients, and governments in Canada and internationally. It operates through four segments: Personal and Commercial, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, and U.S. Specialty Finance and International. The Personal and Commercial segment offers personal banking services, including transaction solutions, mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, consumer loans, payment solutions, and savings and investment solutions; various insurance products; and commercial banking services, such as credit, and deposit, investment solutions, international trade, foreign exchange transactions, payroll, cash management, insurance, electronic transactions, and complimentary services.

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