SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) has received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nineteen brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, eleven have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $288.00.

SAP has been the topic of a number of research reports. Zacks Research lowered shares of SAP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, March 5th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of SAP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, May 16th. Santander raised shares of SAP from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 24th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of SAP in a research note on Thursday, May 14th. Finally, HSBC raised shares of SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 22nd.

SAP Trading Down 1.2%

SAP opened at $184.89 on Friday. SAP has a fifty-two week low of $158.58 and a fifty-two week high of $313.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 1.07 and a quick ratio of 1.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $227.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.99, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.12. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $173.63 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $204.83.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last posted its earnings results on Friday, February 27th. The software maker reported $1.99 earnings per share for the quarter. SAP had a net margin of 20.08% and a return on equity of 17.31%. The firm had revenue of $11.06 billion for the quarter. As a group, research analysts predict that SAP will post 8.39 earnings per share for the current year.

SAP Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed an annual dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 5th were paid a $2.9291 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, May 5th. This represents a dividend yield of 170.0%. This is an increase from SAP’s previous annual dividend of $2.54. SAP’s payout ratio is currently 28.92%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SAP

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of SAP by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 14,728,881 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,577,793,000 after purchasing an additional 179,550 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in SAP by 58.1% during the second quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 2,650,418 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $805,992,000 after buying an additional 973,779 shares during the last quarter. Windacre Partnership LLC raised its holdings in SAP by 130.9% during the third quarter. Windacre Partnership LLC now owns 2,357,225 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $629,874,000 after buying an additional 1,336,325 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of SAP by 3.2% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,560,994 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $417,113,000 after purchasing an additional 49,111 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in shares of SAP by 7.5% in the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,200,024 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $291,498,000 after purchasing an additional 83,349 shares during the last quarter.

SAP Company Profile

SAP SE is a global enterprise software company headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. Founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers, the company’s name is an acronym for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing). SAP develops and sells software and services that help organizations manage business processes across finance, human resources, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and customer relationships.

SAP’s product portfolio spans on‑premises and cloud offerings, anchored by its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions such as SAP S/4HANA and the SAP HANA in‑memory database and platform.