Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) shares saw a substantial decline in the short interest during the month of July. Total short interest was 161,625,885 as on July 15th, a drop of 7.3% from the June 30th total of 174,354,201 shares. Around 3.2% of the shares of the company are 3.2% of the shares.
Recent Insider transactions
Recently, VP Thomas M. Kilroy sold 349,595 shares of the company’s stock in an open market transaction on Monday, July 21st. Kilroy sold the holdings at an average price of $34.06 for a total of $11,907,205.70, according to a filing with SEC.
Another insider, Stacy J. Smith, CFO sold 614,432 shares in an open market transaction that occurred on Thursday, July17th. Smith sold the stock at an average price of $33.92 totaling $20,841,533.44. After the sale, Smith now directly owns 186,320 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,319,974.
Prior to Smith, Director David B. Yoffie sold 20,000 shares, in the open market, in a transaction executed on July 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $34.19, for a total transaction of $683,800.00. Post transaction, the director directly owns 28,879 shares in the company valued at $987,373.
Analysts bullish on Intel
Recently, number of analysts assigned rating to the stock. Analysts at Bernstein increased their price target on the shares from $28.00 to $31.00, in a research note on Wednesday, July 16th. Separately, analysts at Wedbush hiked the price target on Intel from $30.00 to $34.00, in a research note on Wednesday, July 16th. Barclay’s analyst maintained Equal Weight rating on the stock and assigned a price target of $30.00, in a research note to the investors on July 16th. Intel, presently, has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $33.14.
In the second-quarter, the chip maker posted decent numbers with Earnings per share of $0.55 and revenue of $13.83 billion, which was above the estimates. Also, the chip maker restarted its share repurchase program by $20 billion and issued upbeat guidance for the full year. Board of directors at Intel approved a quarterly dividend of 22.5 cents per share on the company’s common stock. The dividend will be payable on Sept. 1, 2014, to stockholders of record on Aug. 7, 2014.
