SAP (NYSE:SAP) Shares Gap Down – What’s Next?

SAP SE (NYSE:SAP)’s share price gapped down before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $170.30, but opened at $163.84. SAP shares last traded at $163.13, with a volume of 1,041,305 shares traded.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Santander raised shares of SAP from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, April 24th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of SAP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 16th. HSBC raised shares of SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of SAP from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on shares of SAP from $256.00 to $257.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have given a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $283.40.

SAP Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 1.07 and a quick ratio of 1.07. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $173.97 and its 200-day simple moving average is $202.56. The company has a market capitalization of $201.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.21, a PEG ratio of 1.83 and a beta of 1.12.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last released its earnings results on Friday, February 27th. The software maker reported $1.99 earnings per share for the quarter. SAP had a net margin of 20.08% and a return on equity of 17.31%. The business had revenue of $11.06 billion during the quarter. On average, equities analysts forecast that SAP SE will post 8.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

SAP Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced an annual dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 5th were paid a $2.9291 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 5th. This is a boost from SAP’s previous annual dividend of $2.54. This represents a dividend yield of 170.0%. SAP’s dividend payout ratio is 28.92%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SAP

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Binnacle Investments Inc lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 14.2% in the third quarter. Binnacle Investments Inc now owns 338 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $90,000 after buying an additional 42 shares during the period. Spire Wealth Management lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 6.2% in the fourth quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 740 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $180,000 after buying an additional 43 shares during the period. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 1.0% in the second quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 4,495 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,355,000 after buying an additional 43 shares during the period. Euro Pacific Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 5.7% in the fourth quarter. Euro Pacific Asset Management LLC now owns 870 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $213,000 after buying an additional 47 shares during the period. Finally, Modera Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Modera Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,912 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $950,000 after buying an additional 48 shares during the period.

About SAP

SAP SE is a global enterprise software company headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. Founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers, the company’s name is an acronym for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing). SAP develops and sells software and services that help organizations manage business processes across finance, human resources, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and customer relationships.

SAP’s product portfolio spans on‑premises and cloud offerings, anchored by its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions such as SAP S/4HANA and the SAP HANA in‑memory database and platform.