Traders Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN)

Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN – Get Rating) saw unusually large options trading on Friday. Stock traders acquired 19,969 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 37% compared to the average daily volume of 14,583 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nordstrom

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Nordstrom by 1.3% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 10,459,699 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $174,992,000 after purchasing an additional 131,102 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in Nordstrom by 5.5% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,552,284 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $124,245,000 after acquiring an additional 239,120 shares during the period. Balyasny Asset Management LLC grew its position in Nordstrom by 71.0% in the third quarter. Balyasny Asset Management LLC now owns 2,162,440 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $36,178,000 after acquiring an additional 898,176 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its position in Nordstrom by 240.8% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 1,988,500 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $53,908,000 after acquiring an additional 1,405,000 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Nordstrom in the third quarter worth approximately $28,921,000. 66.41% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

JWN has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Telsey Advisory Group reduced their price target on Nordstrom from $25.00 to $19.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday. KeyCorp reduced their price target on Nordstrom from $30.00 to $22.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Credit Suisse Group reduced their price target on Nordstrom from $20.00 to $17.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price target on Nordstrom from $21.00 to $17.00 in a report on Friday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on Nordstrom from $15.00 to $13.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $18.75.

Nordstrom Price Performance

JWN stock opened at $17.47 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.71, a current ratio of 0.99 and a quick ratio of 0.24. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $18.29 and a 200-day simple moving average of $19.68. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.80 billion, a PE ratio of 8.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.42 and a beta of 2.17. Nordstrom has a 1 year low of $15.52 and a 1 year high of $29.59.

Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN – Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 22nd. The specialty retailer reported $0.20 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $3.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.49 billion. Nordstrom had a return on equity of 58.09% and a net margin of 2.08%. The business’s revenue was down 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.39 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Nordstrom will post 2.4 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Nordstrom Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 14th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 29th were given a $0.19 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, November 28th. This represents a $0.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.35%. Nordstrom’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.00%.

About Nordstrom

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Nordstrom, Inc engages in the manufacture and trade of clothes, shoes, and accessories. It operates through the following segments: Retail and Corporate/Other. The Retail segment consists of a selection of high-quality, brand-name, and private label merchandise, which includes apparel, shoes, cosmetics, and accessories for women, men, young adults, and children.