Victory Capital Management Inc. Grows Stock Position in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)

Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) by 7.1% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 496,916 shares of the software company’s stock after buying an additional 33,134 shares during the quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. owned about 0.11% of Adobe worth $296,460,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ADBE. HBC Financial Services PLLC acquired a new position in Adobe during the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Adobe during the fourth quarter worth about $35,000. BluePath Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Adobe in the third quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Hanseatic Management Services Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Adobe in the third quarter valued at approximately $45,000. Finally, Hoey Investments Inc. increased its stake in Adobe by 526.7% during the 3rd quarter. Hoey Investments Inc. now owns 94 shares of the software company’s stock worth $48,000 after buying an additional 79 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.79% of the company’s stock.

Adobe Price Performance

NASDAQ:ADBE traded up $5.51 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $468.34. 1,034,839 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,457,799. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.05. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $512.29 and its 200 day simple moving average is $563.44. Adobe Inc. has a 1 year low of $331.89 and a 1 year high of $638.25. The company has a market cap of $209.82 billion, a PE ratio of 44.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 1.28.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 14th. The software company reported $4.48 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.38 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $5.18 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.14 billion. Adobe had a net margin of 24.08% and a return on equity of 39.12%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.97 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Adobe Inc. will post 14.55 EPS for the current year.

Adobe announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, March 14th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the software company to reacquire up to 10.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Adobe

In other news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 96 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $470.00, for a total transaction of $45,120.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,128 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,940,160. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 96 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $470.00, for a total value of $45,120.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,128 shares in the company, valued at $1,940,160. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Anil Chakravarthy sold 100 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction on Monday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $471.00, for a total transaction of $47,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 33,609 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,829,839. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 293 shares of company stock valued at $137,656 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Robert W. Baird cut their target price on shares of Adobe from $590.00 to $525.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 15th. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of Adobe from $600.00 to $540.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 15th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of Adobe from $650.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 15th. TD Cowen dropped their price objective on shares of Adobe from $650.00 to $640.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 15th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $610.00 price objective on shares of Adobe in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and twenty have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $620.72.

Adobe Company Profile

Adobe Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified software company worldwide. It operates through three segments: Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing and Advertising. The Digital Media segment offers products, services, and solutions that enable individuals, teams, and enterprises to create, publish, and promote content; and Document Cloud, a unified cloud-based document services platform.