Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Upgraded to “Buy” at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning.

Several other research firms also recently commented on ADBE. Redburn Atlantic began coverage on shares of Adobe in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. They set a “neutral” rating for the company. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Adobe from $551.00 to $490.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 10th. Summit Redstone set a $410.00 price objective on shares of Adobe in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Adobe from $650.00 to $590.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 31st. Finally, Oppenheimer dropped their price objective on shares of Adobe from $560.00 to $530.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, March 13th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $502.88.

Adobe Stock Performance

ADBE opened at $414.33 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.07. The stock has a market capitalization of $176.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.41, a PEG ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 1.55. The company has a fifty day moving average of $376.81 and a 200 day moving average of $432.49. Adobe has a fifty-two week low of $332.01 and a fifty-two week high of $587.75.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, March 12th. The software company reported $5.08 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.97 by $0.11. Adobe had a net margin of 25.85% and a return on equity of 45.87%. The business had revenue of $5.71 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.66 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $4.48 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Adobe will post 16.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Daniel Durn acquired 1,300 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 20th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $390.58 per share, with a total value of $507,754.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 29,876 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,668,968.08. This trade represents a 4.55% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.16% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Adobe

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ADBE. Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH raised its position in Adobe by 252.9% in the 4th quarter. Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH now owns 55,658 shares of the software company’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 39,888 shares during the period. 1248 Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Adobe during the first quarter worth approximately $25,000. Barnes Dennig Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Adobe during the first quarter worth approximately $26,000. SWAN Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Adobe during the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Finally, Copia Wealth Management purchased a new position in shares of Adobe during the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. 81.79% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Adobe

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.