Ranger Investment Management L.P. Buys Shares of 873,139 Pegasystems Inc. $PEGA

Ranger Investment Management L.P. bought a new position in Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 873,139 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,168,000. Pegasystems accounts for 1.7% of Ranger Investment Management L.P.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 19th largest holding. Ranger Investment Management L.P. owned about 0.53% of Pegasystems at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Pegasystems in the 2nd quarter valued at $286,923,000. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Pegasystems by 236.2% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 4,037,552 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $217,584,000 after buying an additional 2,836,733 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Pegasystems by 255.3% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,907,677 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $157,393,000 after acquiring an additional 2,089,375 shares in the last quarter. Copeland Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Pegasystems during the first quarter worth about $47,817,000. Finally, Capital Impact Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Pegasystems in the fourth quarter valued at about $45,705,000. 46.89% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, 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 transaction of $26,062.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 2,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $100,566.50. This trade represents a 20.58% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,250 shares of company stock worth $78,038. Corporate insiders own 48.40% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on PEGA. Loop Capital downgraded Pegasystems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $55.00 to $25.00 in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. William Blair cut Pegasystems from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Rosenblatt Securities decreased their price objective on Pegasystems from $58.00 to $47.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $39.00 target price (down from $48.00) on shares of Pegasystems in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. Finally, Citigroup downgraded shares of Pegasystems from a “market outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $50.10.

Pegasystems Price Performance

PEGA opened at $33.56 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $5.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.96 and a beta of 0.87. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $31.08 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $36.67. Pegasystems Inc. has a 1 year low of $25.10 and a 1 year high of $68.10.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 21st. The technology company reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.43 by ($0.08). The firm had revenue of $420.72 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $427.38 million. Pegasystems had a return on equity of 32.21% and a net margin of 18.66%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.28 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Pegasystems Inc. will post 1.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Pegasystems Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, July 1st were given a dividend of $0.03 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, July 1st. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.4%. Pegasystems’s dividend payout ratio is 6.78%.

Pegasystems Profile

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.