Crawford Investment Counsel Inc. Cuts Stock Position in Amdocs Limited $DOX

Crawford Investment Counsel Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Amdocs Limited (NASDAQ:DOX) by 4.3% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 910,884 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 40,608 shares during the period. Crawford Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Amdocs were worth $73,335,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of DOX. Pzena Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Amdocs by 82.6% during the fourth quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 12,037,015 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $969,100,000 after purchasing an additional 5,443,766 shares during the period. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. grew its position in shares of Amdocs by 155.1% during the fourth quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. now owns 2,110,393 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $169,908,000 after buying an additional 1,283,231 shares in the last quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. grew its position in shares of Amdocs by 32.1% during the third quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 2,359,779 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $193,620,000 after buying an additional 573,349 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Amdocs by 24.0% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,892,761 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $232,903,000 after buying an additional 560,380 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Squarepoint Ops LLC grew its position in shares of Amdocs by 469.4% during the fourth quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 543,875 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $43,787,000 after buying an additional 448,358 shares in the last quarter. 92.02% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on DOX shares. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on Amdocs from $88.00 to $71.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Cfra downgraded Amdocs to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Amdocs in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded Amdocs from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 16th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $86.67.

Amdocs Stock Performance

Shares of DOX opened at $56.01 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $62.76 and a 200 day moving average price of $70.43. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The company has a market capitalization of $6.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 0.38. Amdocs Limited has a 52-week low of $55.27 and a 52-week high of $95.41.

Amdocs (NASDAQ:DOX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 14th. The technology company reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.77 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $1.17 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.17 billion. Amdocs had a return on equity of 19.77% and a net margin of 11.81%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 3.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.78 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Amdocs Limited will post 6.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Amdocs Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 31st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 30th will be issued a $0.569 dividend. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, June 30th. Amdocs’s dividend payout ratio is presently 45.60%.

Amdocs Profile

Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX) is a global software and services provider specializing in solutions for communications, media and entertainment companies. The company designs, develops and integrates revenue management, customer experience and digital services platforms that enable service providers to launch and monetize new offerings, streamline operations and enhance subscriber engagement. Amdocs’ product suite encompasses billing and order management, customer relationship management, digital commerce and network function virtualization, supported by professional services for implementation, integration and managed operations.

Founded in 1982 and structured as a separate public company in 1998, Amdocs has its corporate headquarters in Chesterfield, Missouri, and maintains major development centers in Ra’anana, Israel.