Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) have earned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the eleven research firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and eight have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $63.70.

Several analysts have recently issued reports on PEGA shares. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $60.00 price objective (down from $65.00) on shares of Pegasystems in a research report on Wednesday, April 22nd. DA Davidson set a $55.00 price objective on Pegasystems and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, April 17th. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $62.00 price objective on shares of Pegasystems in a research report on Monday, April 20th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Pegasystems from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, KeyCorp set a $60.00 price objective on Pegasystems in a research report on Thursday, February 5th.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $42.88, for a total value of $42,880.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 3,365 shares in the company, valued at $144,291.20. This represents a 22.91% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Rifat Kerim Akgonul sold 4,545 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $33.35, for a total value of $151,575.75. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 107,070 shares in the company, valued at $3,570,784.50. This represents a 4.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 57,139 shares of company stock worth $2,495,599 over the last three months. 48.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Pegasystems

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Pegasystems by 2.0% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 11,272,359 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $648,161,000 after buying an additional 221,791 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Pegasystems by 236.2% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 4,037,552 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $217,584,000 after buying an additional 2,836,733 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in Pegasystems by 14.8% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,127,771 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $186,790,000 after buying an additional 402,763 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its position in Pegasystems by 255.3% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,907,677 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $157,393,000 after buying an additional 2,089,375 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Pegasystems by 28.3% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,721,958 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $162,555,000 after buying an additional 599,790 shares during the period. 46.89% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Pegasystems Stock Performance

Pegasystems stock opened at $35.73 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.21 and a beta of 0.88. Pegasystems has a fifty-two week low of $32.00 and a fifty-two week high of $68.10. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $38.42 and its two-hundred day moving average is $47.13.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 21st. The technology company reported $0.46 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.68 by ($0.22). The firm had revenue of $429.97 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $473.24 million. Pegasystems had a net margin of 20.04% and a return on equity of 30.05%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.76 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Pegasystems will post 1.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Pegasystems Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 1st were given a $0.03 dividend. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, April 1st. Pegasystems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 6.45%.

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.