Prescott Group Capital Management L.L.C. Acquires 20,071 Shares of Pegasystems Inc. $PEGA

Prescott Group Capital Management L.L.C. grew its holdings in shares of Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) by 38.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 72,071 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 20,071 shares during the quarter. Prescott Group Capital Management L.L.C.’s holdings in Pegasystems were worth $4,304,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Pegasystems by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 11,272,359 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $648,161,000 after acquiring an additional 221,791 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Pegasystems by 236.2% during 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 during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Pegasystems by 255.3% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,907,677 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $157,393,000 after acquiring an additional 2,089,375 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Pegasystems by 11.5% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,725,008 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $156,688,000 after acquiring an additional 280,347 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Pegasystems by 7.9% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,468,516 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $141,950,000 after acquiring an additional 181,627 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 46.89% of the company’s stock.

Pegasystems Stock Performance

PEGA opened at $34.37 on Thursday. Pegasystems Inc. has a 52-week low of $32.00 and a 52-week high of $68.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.74 billion, a PE ratio of 18.48 and a beta of 0.88. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $39.64 and its 200-day moving average price is $48.34.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 21st. The technology company reported $0.46 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.68 by ($0.22). Pegasystems had a net margin of 20.04% and a return on equity of 30.05%. The business had revenue of $429.97 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $473.24 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.76 earnings per share. Pegasystems’s quarterly revenue was down 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that Pegasystems Inc. will post 1.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Pegasystems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 15th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 1st were paid a dividend of $0.03 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, April 1st. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.3%. Pegasystems’s payout ratio is 6.45%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Rifat Kerim Akgonul sold 7,594 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $43.39, for a total transaction of $329,503.66. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 111,429 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,834,904.31. The trade was a 6.38% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Kenneth Stillwell sold 44,000 shares of Pegasystems stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $44.81, for a total value of $1,971,640.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 109,123 shares in the company, valued at $4,889,801.63. This represents a 28.74% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 57,139 shares of company stock valued at $2,495,599. Company insiders own 48.40% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on PEGA shares. Weiss Ratings downgraded Pegasystems from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Friday, April 24th. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $62.00 target price on shares of Pegasystems in a research report on Monday, April 20th. Zacks Research downgraded Pegasystems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, April 24th. KeyCorp set a $60.00 target price on Pegasystems in a research report on Thursday, February 5th. Finally, Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $60.00 target price on shares of Pegasystems in a research report on Thursday, April 23rd. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Pegasystems currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $63.70.

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.