Zacks Research Downgrades SAP (NYSE:SAP) to Hold

SAP (NYSE:SAP) was downgraded by equities research analysts at Zacks Research from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report issued on Thursday,Zacks.com reports.

SAP has been the subject of several other research reports. Santander raised SAP to a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of SAP from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Friday, February 27th. HSBC raised SAP to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Citizens Jmp downgraded SAP from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded SAP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Buy rating and six have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, SAP currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $305.75.

SAP Trading Up 1.3%

NYSE SAP opened at $202.09 on Thursday. SAP has a one year low of $187.93 and a one year high of $313.28. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $218.45 and a 200 day simple moving average of $244.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 1.16 and a quick ratio of 1.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $248.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.67, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.18.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The software maker reported $1.90 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.77 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $11.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.77 billion. SAP had a net margin of 19.92% and a return on equity of 16.54%. SAP’s quarterly revenue was up 3.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.40 EPS. Research analysts expect that SAP will post 6.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SAP

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Windacre Partnership LLC raised its position in SAP by 130.9% in the 3rd quarter. Windacre Partnership LLC now owns 2,357,225 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $629,874,000 after purchasing an additional 1,336,325 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of SAP by 9.0% in the 2nd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 14,157,321 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $4,305,242,000 after buying an additional 1,163,616 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its position in shares of SAP by 58.1% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 2,650,418 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $805,992,000 after purchasing an additional 973,779 shares in the last quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP raised its position in shares of SAP by 1,126.3% in the 3rd quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP now owns 842,416 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $225,102,000 after purchasing an additional 773,720 shares during the last quarter. Finally, M&T Bank Corp increased its position in shares of SAP by 1,582.7% in the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 817,295 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $198,529,000 after acquiring an additional 768,725 shares during the period.

SAP Company Profile

SAP SE is a global enterprise software company headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. Founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers, the company’s name is an acronym for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing). SAP develops and sells software and services that help organizations manage business processes across finance, human resources, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and customer relationships.

SAP’s product portfolio spans on‑premises and cloud offerings, anchored by its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions such as SAP S/4HANA and the SAP HANA in‑memory database and platform.