Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) Rating Lowered to Strong Sell at Zacks Research

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) was downgraded by analysts at Zacks Research from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note issued on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other analysts also recently weighed in on PEGA. Rosenblatt Securities cut their target price on Pegasystems from $58.00 to $47.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $39.00 price target (down from $48.00) on shares of Pegasystems in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $35.00 price objective on shares of Pegasystems and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. William Blair downgraded Pegasystems from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Finally, DA Davidson set a $32.00 target price on shares of Pegasystems and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 24th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Pegasystems currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $50.10.

Pegasystems Stock Down 0.5%

PEGA opened at $33.83 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $5.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.11 and a beta of 0.87. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $31.22 and its 200 day moving average price is $36.56. Pegasystems has a fifty-two week low of $25.10 and a fifty-two week high of $68.10.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 21st. The technology company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.43 by ($0.08). The company had revenue of $420.72 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $427.38 million. Pegasystems had a return on equity of 32.21% and a net margin of 18.66%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.28 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Pegasystems will post 1.68 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Rifat Kerim Akgonul sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $33.99, for a total transaction of $101,970.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 108,049 shares in the company, valued at $3,672,585.51. This trade represents a 2.70% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 750 shares of Pegasystems stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $34.75, for a total value of $26,062.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 2,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $100,566.50. This represents a 20.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 5,250 shares of company stock valued at $180,008. Company insiders own 48.40% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Pegasystems

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in Pegasystems in the second quarter valued at approximately $286,923,000. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Pegasystems by 236.2% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 4,037,552 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $217,584,000 after acquiring an additional 2,836,733 shares in the last quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System grew its stake in Pegasystems by 2,809.9% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 3,164,352 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $94,836,000 after purchasing an additional 3,055,609 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of Pegasystems by 14.8% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,127,771 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $186,790,000 after buying an additional 402,763 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its stake in Pegasystems by 255.3% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,907,677 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $157,393,000 after purchasing an additional 2,089,375 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 46.89% of the company’s stock.

Pegasystems Company Profile

Pegasystems Inc is a software company specializing in customer engagement and digital process automation solutions. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pegasystems develops enterprise applications designed to help organizations streamline operations, manage customer interactions and automate complex workflows. Its platform supports a wide range of use cases, from sales and marketing optimization to case management and robotic process automation.

The core of Pegasystems’ offering is the Pega Platform, a low-code development environment that enables businesses to build and deploy applications with minimal hand-coding.