Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) Receives $50.10 Average Price Target from Brokerages

Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) has received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the thirteen research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $50.10.

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities lowered their price objective on shares of Pegasystems from $58.00 to $47.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $39.00 target price (down from $48.00) on shares of Pegasystems in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. William Blair cut Pegasystems from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. KeyCorp downgraded Pegasystems from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Finally, Citizens Jmp lowered Pegasystems from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 22nd.

Insider Transactions at Pegasystems

In related news, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.99, for a total value of $27,742.50. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 2,144 shares in the company, valued at approximately $79,306.56. This trade represents a 25.92% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Rifat Kerim Akgonul sold 4,545 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $33.35, for a total transaction of $151,575.75. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 107,070 shares in the company, valued at $3,570,784.50. The trade was a 4.07% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 6,795 shares of company stock valued at $229,613 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 48.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Pegasystems

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in PEGA. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Pegasystems in the 2nd quarter valued at $286,923,000. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Pegasystems by 236.2% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 4,037,552 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $217,584,000 after purchasing an additional 2,836,733 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in Pegasystems by 255.3% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,907,677 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $157,393,000 after purchasing an additional 2,089,375 shares during the period. Copeland Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Pegasystems in the 1st quarter valued at $47,817,000. Finally, Ranger Investment Management L.P. acquired a new stake in Pegasystems in the 2nd quarter valued at $26,168,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 46.89% of the company’s stock.

Pegasystems Stock Performance

PEGA opened at $32.32 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $31.13 and its 200 day simple moving average is $37.23. Pegasystems has a 1 year low of $25.10 and a 1 year high of $68.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.31 billion, a PE ratio of 18.26 and a beta of 0.87.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 21st. The technology company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by ($0.08). The company had revenue of $420.72 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $427.38 million. Pegasystems had a net margin of 18.66% and a return on equity of 32.21%. Pegasystems’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.28 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Pegasystems will post 1.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Pegasystems Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, July 1st were paid a $0.03 dividend. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, July 1st. Pegasystems’s payout ratio is currently 6.78%.

Pegasystems Company Profile

Pegasystems Inc is a software company specializing in customer engagement and digital process automation solutions. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pegasystems develops enterprise applications designed to help organizations streamline operations, manage customer interactions and automate complex workflows. Its platform supports a wide range of use cases, from sales and marketing optimization to case management and robotic process automation.

The core of Pegasystems’ offering is the Pega Platform, a low-code development environment that enables businesses to build and deploy applications with minimal hand-coding.