Aware (NASDAQ:AWRE) Director John Stafford III Acquires 57,937 Shares of Stock

Aware, Inc. (NASDAQ:AWRE) Director John Stafford III purchased 57,937 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 14th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $1.25 per share, with a total value of $72,421.25. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 5,221,954 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,527,442.50. The trade was a 1.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink.

Aware Price Performance

Aware stock opened at $1.21 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $26.17 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.36 and a beta of 0.89. Aware, Inc. has a 12 month low of $1.02 and a 12 month high of $2.95. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $1.31 and its 200-day moving average is $1.76.

Aware (NASDAQ:AWRE) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The software maker reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Aware had a negative return on equity of 29.66% and a negative net margin of 45.31%.The firm had revenue of $3.39 million for the quarter.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Aware

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pekin Hardy Strauss Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Aware during the third quarter worth about $42,000. XTX Topco Ltd purchased a new position in Aware in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Aware by 71.6% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 34,595 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $55,000 after purchasing an additional 14,436 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC grew its stake in Aware by 14.3% during the 3rd quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 80,000 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $193,000 after purchasing an additional 10,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Bancorp USA Inc. purchased a new stake in Aware during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $193,000. 24.39% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Aware in a report on Monday, April 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Sell rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Sell”.

About Aware

Aware, Inc is a technology company specializing in biometric software and image processing solutions. Its core offerings include fingerprint, face and iris recognition algorithms, biometric template management, and mobile enrolment tools designed to capture and verify identities in secure environments. The company’s software development kits (SDKs) and web services APIs enable system integrators, device manufacturers and application developers to embed biometric and forensic capabilities into their products and services.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, Aware evolved from an imaging technology provider into a leading vendor of biometric software.