Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA Raises Stock Holdings in Pegasystems Inc. $PEGA

Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its stake in shares of Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) by 23.1% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 4,987,291 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 937,216 shares during the quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA’s holdings in Pegasystems were worth $286,769,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in PEGA. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its holdings in shares of Pegasystems by 100.9% during the 2nd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 196,065 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $10,492,000 after buying an additional 98,468 shares during the period. Herald Investment Management Ltd increased its position in Pegasystems by 100.0% during the second quarter. Herald Investment Management Ltd now owns 703,600 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $38,086,000 after acquiring an additional 351,800 shares during the last quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH increased its position in Pegasystems by 60.3% during the second quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 240,225 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $13,003,000 after acquiring an additional 90,404 shares during the last quarter. Convergence Investment Partners LLC bought a new position in Pegasystems in the second quarter valued at about $2,653,000. Finally, Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its position in Pegasystems by 40.6% in the third quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 218,917 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $12,489,000 after purchasing an additional 63,267 shares during the last quarter. 46.89% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

PEGA has been the subject of several research reports. DA Davidson raised shares of Pegasystems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $60.00 to $85.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their target price on shares of Pegasystems from $65.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $80.00 price target (up from $70.00) on shares of Pegasystems in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Pegasystems in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on Pegasystems from $58.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Pegasystems presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $70.05.

Insider Activity

In other Pegasystems news, insider Rifat Kerim Akgonul sold 4,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.19, for a total transaction of $240,760.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 112,845 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,792,140.55. This trade represents a 3.42% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 4,425 shares of Pegasystems stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.25, for a total transaction of $297,581.25. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 206 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,853.50. The trade was a 95.55% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 160,301 shares of company stock valued at $9,744,759 in the last three months. 50.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Pegasystems Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ PEGA opened at $51.99 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $8.82 billion, a PE ratio of 34.89 and a beta of 1.08. Pegasystems Inc. has a 1 year low of $29.84 and a 1 year high of $68.10. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $57.87 and a 200-day moving average price of $56.92.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 21st. The technology company reported $0.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $381.35 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $351.95 million. Pegasystems had a net margin of 16.05% and a return on equity of 43.49%. Pegasystems’s quarterly revenue was up 17.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.39 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Pegasystems Inc. will post 1.89 EPS for the current year.

Pegasystems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 2nd were paid a $0.03 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 2nd. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Pegasystems’s dividend payout ratio is 8.05%.

About Pegasystems

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.