Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) Downgraded to Hold at StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report released on Saturday morning.

HPE has been the topic of several other research reports. Evercore ISI lowered their target price on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $19.00 to $18.00 and set an in-line rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $17.00 to $19.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Barclays lowered their price target on shares of 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. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $16.00 to $19.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Monday, April 15th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $17.91.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Stock Performance

Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock opened at $17.17 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 0.89 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The company has a market cap of $22.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.18 and a beta of 1.21. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a fifty-two week low of $13.65 and a fifty-two week high of $20.07. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $17.08 and its 200-day simple moving average is $16.40.

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

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 12th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a $0.13 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.03%. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s dividend payout ratio is currently 35.86%.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Jeremy Cox sold 18,323 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.96, for a total value of $310,758.08. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 15,541 shares in the company, valued at $263,575.36. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.40% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Rise Advisors LLC grew its position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 253.9% in the 1st quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 1,465 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 1,051 shares during the last quarter. Authentikos Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the third quarter valued at about $31,000. Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory LLC DE bought a new position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the third quarter valued at about $33,000. Salem Investment Counselors Inc. raised its holdings in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 180.1% in the 4th quarter. Salem Investment Counselors Inc. now owns 1,961 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 1,261 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 4th quarter worth approximately $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.78% of the company’s stock.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company Profile

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.