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

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

PEGA has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Loop Capital lowered shares of Pegasystems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $55.00 to $25.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $39.00 price objective (down from $48.00) on shares of Pegasystems in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Weiss Ratings downgraded Pegasystems from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 4th. William Blair lowered Pegasystems from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Finally, KeyCorp downgraded Pegasystems from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $50.10.

Pegasystems Stock Performance

Shares of PEGA opened at $33.83 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $31.22 and a two-hundred day moving average of $36.56. The stock has a market cap of $5.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.11 and a beta of 0.87. Pegasystems has a one year low of $25.10 and a one year high of $68.10.

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

Insider Activity

In other Pegasystems news, insider Rifat Kerim Akgonul sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $33.99, for a total transaction of $101,970.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 108,049 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,672,585.51. This represents a 2.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 2,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $100,566.50. The trade was a 20.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 5,250 shares of company stock valued at $180,008. 48.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in PEGA. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Pegasystems by 141,900.0% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 4,260 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $296,000 after acquiring an additional 4,257 shares in the last quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp raised its position in Pegasystems by 450.4% during the first quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 1,844 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $128,000 after acquiring an additional 1,509 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Pegasystems by 5.6% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 248,168 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $17,253,000 after purchasing an additional 13,075 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its holdings in Pegasystems by 18.0% during the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 155,783 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $10,830,000 after purchasing an additional 23,713 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Focus Partners Wealth grew its position in shares of Pegasystems by 55.0% in the first quarter. Focus Partners Wealth now owns 5,476 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $381,000 after purchasing an additional 1,943 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 46.89% of the company’s stock.

About Pegasystems

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.