North Star Investment Management Corp. Grows Position in Simulations Plus, Inc. $SLP

North Star Investment Management Corp. increased its holdings in shares of Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP) by 17.4% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 197,330 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 29,200 shares during the quarter. North Star Investment Management Corp. owned 0.98% of Simulations Plus worth $2,332,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. First Light Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in Simulations Plus by 156.4% during the fourth quarter. First Light Asset Management LLC now owns 1,968,917 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $35,893,000 after buying an additional 1,201,157 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in shares of Simulations Plus by 25.3% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 875,447 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $15,277,000 after acquiring an additional 176,747 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Simulations Plus by 127.5% in the 4th quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 569,783 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $10,387,000 after acquiring an additional 319,301 shares during the last quarter. Stephens Investment Management Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Simulations Plus by 30.8% in the 4th quarter. Stephens Investment Management Group LLC now owns 513,728 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $9,365,000 after acquiring an additional 120,888 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Eagle Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 1,898.1% during the 4th quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 457,155 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $8,334,000 after purchasing an additional 434,275 shares during the period. 78.08% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently weighed in on the stock. William Blair downgraded shares of Simulations Plus from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 17th. Wall Street Zen lowered Simulations Plus from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, June 13th. TD Cowen lowered their price target on Simulations Plus from $19.00 to $16.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 10th. Craig Hallum cut Simulations Plus from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $18.50 price objective for the company. in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded Simulations Plus from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (d)” rating in a report on Friday, June 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $20.90.

Simulations Plus Stock Performance

Shares of SLP stock opened at $18.20 on Monday. Simulations Plus, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $11.09 and a fifty-two week high of $21.01. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $15.81 and a 200 day moving average price of $15.53. The stock has a market capitalization of $367.64 million, a P/E ratio of -5.81 and a beta of 1.32.

Simulations Plus (NASDAQ:SLP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, April 9th. The technology company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by $0.08. Simulations Plus had a negative net margin of 77.96% and a positive return on equity of 16.21%. The company had revenue of $24.29 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $21.66 million. On average, research analysts forecast that Simulations Plus, Inc. will post 0.8 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Simulations Plus Profile

Simulations Plus, Inc (NASDAQ: SLP) specializes in advanced modeling and simulation software tailored to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and chemical industries. The company’s flagship products include ADMET Predictor, a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) tool for predicting absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity properties, and GastroPlus, a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling platform for simulating drug absorption and pharmacokinetics.