CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) to Buyback $500.00 million in Stock

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) declared that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, February 18th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $500.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the technology company to buy up to 1.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

CoStar Group Stock Down 1.1 %

NASDAQ:CSGP opened at $78.35 on Friday. CoStar Group has a 1 year low of $68.26 and a 1 year high of $100.38. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $73.82 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $75.37. The stock has a market cap of $32.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 223.84 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a current ratio of 9.63, a quick ratio of 9.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The technology company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.22. The business had revenue of $709.40 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $703.00 million. CoStar Group had a return on equity of 3.13% and a net margin of 5.07%. As a group, equities analysts expect that CoStar Group will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on CSGP shares. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on CoStar Group from $78.00 to $75.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. JMP Securities reiterated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 price objective on shares of CoStar Group in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Needham & Company LLC cut their target price on shares of CoStar Group from $100.00 to $87.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. StockNews.com cut shares of CoStar Group from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their price target on shares of CoStar Group from $96.00 to $93.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $88.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Michael J. Desmarais sold 5,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.88, for a total transaction of $439,340.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 58,798 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,696,784.24. This trade represents a 8.55 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 1.57% of the company’s stock.

About CoStar Group

CoStar Group, Inc provides information, analytics, and online marketplace services to the commercial real estate, hospitality, residential, and related professionals industries in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The company offers CoStar Property that provides inventory of office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, and student housing properties and land; CoStar Sales, a robust database of comparable commercial real estate sales transactions; CoStar Market Analytics to view and report on aggregated market and submarket trends; and CoStar Tenant, an online business-to-business prospecting and analytical tool that provides tenant information.