SAP (NYSE:SAP) Trading Up 7% After Analyst Upgrade

SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) rose 7% during mid-day trading on Monday after BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on the stock from $175.00 to $177.00. BMO Capital Markets currently has an outperform rating on the stock. SAP traded as high as $171.22 and last traded at $171.1340. Approximately 1,469,008 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 54% from the average daily volume of 3,203,490 shares. The stock had previously closed at $160.00.

SAP has been the subject of several other reports. Santander upgraded SAP from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, April 24th. HSBC upgraded SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of SAP from $257.00 to $255.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 21st. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of SAP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 16th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered shares of SAP from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $264.83.

Institutional Trading of SAP

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Windacre Partnership LLC raised its position in shares of SAP by 130.9% in the 3rd quarter. Windacre Partnership LLC now owns 2,357,225 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $629,874,000 after purchasing an additional 1,336,325 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE grew its position in SAP by 58.1% during 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 during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership acquired a new position in SAP during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $150,701,000. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP increased its stake in SAP by 1,126.3% during 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 in the last quarter. Finally, M&T Bank Corp raised its holdings in shares of SAP by 1,582.7% in the fourth quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 817,295 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $198,529,000 after buying an additional 768,725 shares during the last quarter.

SAP Stock Up 7.1%

The firm has a market capitalization of $210.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.49, a P/E/G ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 1.14. The company has a quick ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $165.59 and its 200 day moving average price is $184.04.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 27th. The software maker reported $1.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The company had revenue of $11.06 billion during the quarter. SAP had a return on equity of 17.16% and a net margin of 20.88%. As a group, research analysts forecast that SAP SE will post 8.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About SAP

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.