Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) Shares Up 0.4%

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) shares rose 0.4% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $477.05 and last traded at $476.48. Approximately 491,583 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 86% from the average daily volume of 3,550,121 shares. The stock had previously closed at $474.45.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ADBE has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. BNP Paribas lowered Adobe from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $499.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Adobe from $650.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 15th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on Adobe from $590.00 to $525.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 15th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $630.00 price objective on shares of Adobe in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Finally, Barclays decreased their target price on Adobe from $700.00 to $630.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 15th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and twenty have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $620.72.

Adobe Trading Down 1.7 %

The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $527.09 and a 200-day moving average price of $565.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.05. The stock has a market cap of $208.33 billion, a PE ratio of 44.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 1.28.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 14th. The software company reported $4.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.38 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $5.18 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.14 billion. Adobe had a return on equity of 39.12% and a net margin of 24.08%. Adobe’s quarterly revenue was up 11.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.97 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Adobe Inc. will post 14.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Adobe declared that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Thursday, March 14th that authorizes the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the software company to buy up to 10.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Adobe

In related news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 96 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $470.00, for a total value of $45,120.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,128 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,940,160. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In related news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 96 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $470.00, for a total value of $45,120.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,128 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,940,160. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 788 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $615.42, for a total value of $484,950.96. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,055 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,495,528.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 3,075 shares of company stock valued at $1,848,418 in the last quarter. 0.15% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Adobe

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Adobe by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 40,266,172 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $24,022,798,000 after purchasing an additional 603,302 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Adobe by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 18,632,322 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $7,180,322,000 after acquiring an additional 269,173 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in shares of Adobe by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 10,371,262 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $5,288,309,000 after acquiring an additional 277,484 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Adobe by 10.0% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 6,497,332 shares of the software company’s stock worth $3,876,309,000 after purchasing an additional 590,533 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in Adobe in the 4th quarter worth approximately $3,277,785,000. 81.79% of the stock is currently owned by 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.