ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) Stock Rating Upgraded by Wall Street Zen

ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Saturday.

NOW has been the subject of several other reports. Guggenheim restated a “sell” rating and issued a $724.00 target price on shares of ServiceNow in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Needham & Company LLC upped their target price on shares of ServiceNow from $1,050.00 to $1,200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of ServiceNow from $1,150.00 to $1,225.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of ServiceNow in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on shares of ServiceNow from $1,025.00 to $1,150.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 24th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty have assigned a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, ServiceNow presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $1,121.37.

ServiceNow Price Performance

ServiceNow stock opened at $904.57 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $188.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 113.93, a PEG ratio of 4.07 and a beta of 0.92. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $910.30 and a 200-day moving average of $936.72. The company has a quick ratio of 1.09, a current ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. ServiceNow has a 52-week low of $678.66 and a 52-week high of $1,198.09.

ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The information technology services provider reported $4.09 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.57 by $0.52. The business had revenue of $3.22 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.12 billion. ServiceNow had a net margin of 13.78% and a return on equity of 18.04%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 22.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.13 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that ServiceNow will post 8.93 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other ServiceNow news, General Counsel Russell S. Elmer sold 1,698 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $884.26, for a total transaction of $1,501,473.48. Following the transaction, the general counsel directly owned 4,332 shares in the company, valued at $3,830,614.32. This represents a 28.16% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO William R. Mcdermott sold 5,825 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $916.63, for a total transaction of $5,339,369.75. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 6,614 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,062,590.82. The trade was a 46.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 18,737 shares of company stock worth $16,798,825 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.38% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of NOW. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of ServiceNow in the 2nd quarter worth about $2,589,235,000. Nuveen LLC bought a new position in shares of ServiceNow in the 1st quarter worth about $1,817,535,000. OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd lifted its position in shares of ServiceNow by 1,586.5% in the 1st quarter. OVERSEA CHINESE BANKING Corp Ltd now owns 933,209 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $742,965,000 after buying an additional 877,875 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of ServiceNow by 131.4% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,480,526 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,178,706,000 after buying an additional 840,731 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Parnassus Investments LLC acquired a new stake in shares of ServiceNow in the 1st quarter worth about $519,806,000. 87.18% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About ServiceNow

ServiceNow, Inc provides end to-end intelligent workflow automation platform solutions for digital businesses in the North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates the Now platform for end-to-end digital transformation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, process mining, performance analytics, and collaboration and development tools.