Brokerages Set StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) Price Target at $54.69

StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP) has earned an average rating of “Hold” from the seven ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $61.71.

STEP has been the topic of several recent research reports. Oppenheimer raised their target price on shares of StepStone Group from $56.00 to $73.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of StepStone Group from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $52.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $51.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, October 7th.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On StepStone Group

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its stake in StepStone Group by 291.1% in the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 618 shares of the company’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 460 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. increased its stake in shares of StepStone Group by 1,586.3% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 860 shares of the company’s stock worth $49,000 after purchasing an additional 809 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE raised its holdings in shares of StepStone Group by 442.7% in the 3rd quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 966 shares of the company’s stock valued at $55,000 after purchasing an additional 788 shares during the period. CWM LLC lifted its position in shares of StepStone Group by 190.4% in the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,185 shares of the company’s stock valued at $67,000 after buying an additional 777 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new position in shares of StepStone Group during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $111,000. 55.54% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

StepStone Group Trading Down 1.9 %

Shares of STEP stock opened at $59.00 on Thursday. StepStone Group has a 1 year low of $25.06 and a 1 year high of $62.99. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $57.26 and its 200-day moving average is $48.56. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 77.63 and a beta of 1.27.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.35 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $186.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $181.15 million. The company’s revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.26 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that StepStone Group will post 1.85 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 30th were given a dividend of $0.24 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 30th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.63%. This is an increase from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. StepStone Group’s dividend payout ratio is 126.32%.

StepStone Group Company Profile

StepStone Group Inc is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in direct, fund of funds, secondary direct, and secondary indirect investments. For direct investment, it seeks to invest in private debt, venture debt, incubation, mezzanine, distressed/vulture, seed/startup, early venture, mid venture, late venture, emerging growth, later stage, turnaround, growth capital, industry consolidation, recapitalization, buyout investments in mature and middle market companies.