Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) (TSE:BMO) was the target of a large decrease in short interest in January. As of January 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,500,000 shares, a decrease of 17.1% from the December 31st total of 4,220,000 shares. Approximately 0.5% of the company's shares are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 537,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 6.5 days.

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Davis Rea LTD. boosted its stake in Bank of Montreal by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Davis Rea LTD. now owns 17,001 shares of the bank's stock valued at $1,290,000 after acquiring an additional 233 shares in the last quarter. Addenda Capital Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Bank of Montreal by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Addenda Capital Inc. now owns 13,224 shares of the bank's stock worth $1,005,000 after buying an additional 322 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Bank of Montreal in the fourth quarter worth $26,000. OLD National Bancorp IN raised its holdings in shares of Bank of Montreal by 9.1% in the fourth quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 4,227 shares of the bank's stock worth $321,000 after buying an additional 354 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Texas Yale Capital Corp. raised its holdings in shares of Bank of Montreal by 3.3% in the third quarter. Texas Yale Capital Corp. now owns 11,648 shares of the bank's stock worth $680,000 after buying an additional 375 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 39.18% of the company's stock.

A number of equities analysts have commented on BMO shares. Canaccord Genuity restated a "buy" rating on shares of Bank of Montreal in a research note on Wednesday, December 2nd. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a "market perform" rating on shares of Bank of Montreal in a research note on Wednesday, December 2nd. CIBC upgraded shares of Bank of Montreal to an "outperformer" rating and increased their price objective for the company from $95.00 to $108.00 in a research note on Thursday, November 19th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from $93.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a "sector perform" rating in a research note on Monday, January 11th. Finally, Credit Suisse Group increased their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from $90.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Bank of Montreal has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $82.89.

Shares of BMO opened at $74.48 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $48.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.23, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.51 and a beta of 1.29. Bank of Montreal has a twelve month low of $38.31 and a twelve month high of $80.40. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company has a 50 day moving average of $76.76 and a two-hundred day moving average of $66.06.

Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) (TSE:BMO) last announced its earnings results on Monday, November 30th. The bank reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters' consensus estimate of $1.91 by $0.50. The company had revenue of $5.99 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.86 billion. Bank of Montreal had a net margin of 14.82% and a return on equity of 10.69%. Bank of Montreal's revenue was down 1.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.43 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Bank of Montreal will post 6.48 EPS for the current year.

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 26th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 1st will be paid a $0.796 dividend. This represents a $3.18 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.27%. This is an increase from Bank of Montreal's previous quarterly dividend of $0.79. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 29th. Bank of Montreal's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 55.50%.