Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Trading Up 1.8% – Should You Buy?

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)’s stock price shot up 1.8% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $423.97 and last traded at $420.15. 1,286,448 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 67% from the average session volume of 3,841,135 shares. The stock had previously closed at $412.71.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on ADBE. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on Adobe from $700.00 to $640.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. StockNews.com upgraded Adobe from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Mizuho reduced their price objective on Adobe from $640.00 to $620.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Citigroup reduced their price objective on Adobe from $616.00 to $590.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, DA Davidson reduced their price target on Adobe from $685.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $573.00.

Adobe Stock Up 1.1 %

The business has a 50-day moving average price of $481.07 and a 200-day moving average price of $515.02. The company has a market capitalization of $183.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.51 and a beta of 1.31. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, December 11th. The software company reported $4.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.67 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $5.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.54 billion. Adobe had a return on equity of 45.22% and a net margin of 25.85%. Adobe’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.52 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Adobe Inc. will post 16.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Adobe

In other news, CAO Jillian Forusz sold 676 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $484.97, for a total transaction of $327,839.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 2,715 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,316,693.55. The trade was a 19.94 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Scott Belsky sold 481 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction on Friday, October 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $483.42, for a total value of $232,525.02. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 18,128 shares in the company, valued at $8,763,437.76. This represents a 2.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 1,763 shares of company stock valued at $893,665 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.15% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of ADBE. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its stake in Adobe by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 1,712,616 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $765,094,000 after purchasing an additional 33,414 shares in the last quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board grew its stake in Adobe by 12.2% in the third quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 19,322 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $10,005,000 after purchasing an additional 2,100 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its stake in Adobe by 28.0% in the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 6,458 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $3,344,000 after purchasing an additional 1,412 shares in the last quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. grew its stake in Adobe by 201.0% in the third quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 117,383 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $60,779,000 after purchasing an additional 78,384 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Morse Asset Management Inc grew its stake in Adobe by 33.0% in the third quarter. Morse Asset Management Inc now owns 8,519 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $4,411,000 after purchasing an additional 2,113 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.79% of the company’s stock.

Adobe Company Profile

Adobe Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified software company worldwide. It operates through three segments: Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing and Advertising. The Digital Media segment offers products, services, and solutions that enable individuals, teams, and enterprises to create, publish, and promote content; and Document Cloud, a unified cloud-based document services platform.