Fred’s, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRED) is among the top losers of the stock market today, sinking -5.46% or (-0.1 points) to $1.73 from its previous close of $1.83. Does this decline mean it the best stock to buy right now? The shares seem to have an active trading volume day with a reported 140008 contracts so far this session. FRED shares had a relatively better volume day versus average trading capacity of 310.53 thousand shares, but with a 36 million float and a -14.49% run over a week, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on. The one year price forecast for FRED stock indicates that the average analyst price target is $2 per share. This means the stock has a potential increase of 15.61% from where the FRED share price has been trading recently which is between $1.79 and $1.99.
The shorts are climbing into Fred’s, Inc. (FRED) stock. The latest set of short interest data was released on 29 March 2019, and the numbers show a rise in short interest in FRED shares. While short interest still represents only 8.96% of FRED’s float, the number of shares shorted have risen by 81374. The number of shares shorted advanced to 3305921 shares, up from 3224547 shares during the preceding fortnight. With average daily trading volumes at 179013 shares, days to cover increased to about 10.94596 days. The most recent news story about the stock that appeared in Yahoo Finance‘s news section was titled “Here are the Freds stores where liquidation sales will start today” and dated April 12, 2019.
During the recent trading session for Fred’s, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRED), the company witnessed their stock drop by $-0.33 over a week and tumble down $-1.05 from the price 20 days ago. When compared to their established 52-week high of $3.58, the high they recorded in their recent session happens to be lower. Their established 52-week high was attained by the company on 12/11/18. The recent low of $1.3 stood for a -51.68% since 01/06/18, a data which is good for most investors who are looking to take advantage of the stock’s recent rise. A beta of 1.3 is also allocated to the stock. Since the beta is greater than one, it implies that the stock is more volatile than the market, a data that traders are keeping close attention to.
Looking at the current readings for Fred’s, Inc., the two-week RSI stands at 19.73. This figure suggests that FRED stock, for now, is overbought, meaning that the shares are not stable in terms of price movement. The stochastic readings, on the other hand, based on the current FRED readings is similarly very revealing as it has a stochastic reading of 5.38% at this stage. This figure means that FRED share price today is being overbought.
Technical chart claims that Fred’s, Inc. (FRED) would settle between $1.95/share to $2.07/share level. However, if the stock price goes below the $1.75 mark, then the market for Fred’s, Inc. becomes much weaker. If that happens, the stock price might even plunge as low as $1.67 for its downside target. The stock is currently in the red zone of MACD, with the indicator reading -0.17. Traders are always alerted for the move of a stock above or below the zero line due to the fact that the reading is an indicator of the position of the short-term average relative to the long-term average. If the MACD is above the zero line, then the short-term average relative is above that of the long-term average, thus implying an upward momentum. Vice versa is the case if the MACD is below the zero line.
Analysts at Loop Capital, assumed coverage of FRED assigning Hold rating, according to their opinion released on August 25. Sidoti analysts bumped their rating on Fred’s, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRED) stock from Neutral to Buy in a separate flash note issued to investors on February 07. Analysts at Sidoti lowered the stock to a Neutral call from its previous Buy recommendation, in a research note that dated back to December 20.
Moving on, FRED stock price is currently trading at 0X forward 12-month Consensus EPS estimates, and its P/S ratio is 0.12 while for the average stock in the same group, the multiple is 1.32.