Jefferies Financial Group Issues Pessimistic Forecast for ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW) Stock Price

ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW) had its price objective cut by Jefferies Financial Group from $68.00 to $60.00 in a report released on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a buy rating on the technology company’s stock.

Several other research firms also recently commented on ACIW. DA Davidson raised shares of ACI Worldwide from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $60.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of ACI Worldwide from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 22nd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, ACI Worldwide has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $60.00.

ACI Worldwide Trading Up 0.6%

ACIW stock opened at $46.59 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $51.39 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $52.84. The company has a quick ratio of 1.56, a current ratio of 1.56 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.08 and a beta of 1.14. ACI Worldwide has a twelve month low of $33.32 and a twelve month high of $59.71.

ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The technology company reported $0.51 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.33 by $0.18. The company had revenue of $394.57 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $364.36 million. ACI Worldwide had a net margin of 14.04% and a return on equity of 21.67%. The firm’s revenue was up 24.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.10 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that ACI Worldwide will post 2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other ACI Worldwide news, CEO Thomas W. Warsop III bought 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 12th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $48.57 per share, for a total transaction of $242,850.00. Following the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 326,922 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,878,601.54. The trade was a 1.55% increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Charles E. Peters, Jr. sold 12,940 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.57, for a total transaction of $744,955.80. Following the transaction, the director now owns 80,842 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,654,073.94. The trade was a 13.80% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of ACI Worldwide by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,863,463 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $719,652,000 after buying an additional 189,980 shares in the last quarter. Hood River Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of ACI Worldwide by 3.1% in the 4th quarter. Hood River Capital Management LLC now owns 3,374,507 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $175,171,000 after buying an additional 100,311 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of ACI Worldwide by 18.4% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,962,449 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $154,095,000 after buying an additional 459,821 shares in the last quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP boosted its holdings in shares of ACI Worldwide by 18.3% in the 4th quarter. North Reef Capital Management LP now owns 2,141,000 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $111,139,000 after buying an additional 331,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of ACI Worldwide by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,027,606 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $110,930,000 after buying an additional 14,278 shares in the last quarter. 94.74% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide, Inc, a software company, develops, markets, installs, and supports a range of software products and solutions for facilitating digital payments in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Banks, Merchants, and Billers. The company offers ACI Acquiring, a solution to process credit, debit, and prepaid card transactions, deliver digital innovation, and fraud prevention; ACI Issuing, a digital payment issuing solution for new payment offering; and ACI Enterprise Payments Platform that provides payment processing and orchestration capabilities for digital payments.