Verdence Capital Advisors LLC Acquires 693 Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE)

Verdence Capital Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) by 3.0% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 23,822 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 693 shares during the period. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Hewlett Packard Enterprise were worth $405,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 12.4% during the third quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 33,447 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $581,000 after buying an additional 3,686 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates lifted its position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 13.2% in the fourth quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 932,921 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $15,841,000 after purchasing an additional 108,971 shares during the period. Mackenzie Financial Corp increased its holdings in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 17.4% in the 4th quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 1,562,640 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $26,534,000 after buying an additional 232,150 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 0.9% during the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 4,024,719 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $70,272,000 after acquiring an additional 36,793 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Citigroup Inc. increased its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 70.2% in the third quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 3,550,595 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $61,674,000 after acquiring an additional 1,464,650 shares during the period. 80.78% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Barclays decreased their price objective on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 1st. StockNews.com raised shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $16.00 to $19.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, April 15th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein lowered Hewlett Packard Enterprise from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $20.00 to $17.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $17.91.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Price Performance

Shares of HPE stock opened at $16.84 on Tuesday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $16.89 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $16.40. The stock has a market cap of $21.89 billion, a PE ratio of 11.61, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.21. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a 52-week low of $13.65 and a 52-week high of $20.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.89.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The technology company reported $0.48 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.45 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $6.76 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.09 billion. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a return on equity of 9.12% and a net margin of 6.81%. The firm’s revenue was down 13.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.38 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.4 EPS for the current year.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 12th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were issued a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.09%. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s dividend payout ratio is presently 35.86%.

About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. It operates in six segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other.