West Paces Advisors Inc. Grows Stock Holdings in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)

West Paces Advisors Inc. raised its position in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) by 7.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 467 shares of the software company’s stock after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the quarter. West Paces Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Adobe were worth $279,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ADBE. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Adobe during the third quarter valued at about $25,000. HBC Financial Services PLLC bought a new position in Adobe during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Global Wealth Strategies & Associates lifted its position in Adobe by 57.6% during the third quarter. Global Wealth Strategies & Associates now owns 52 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 19 shares during the period. Financial Freedom LLC bought a new position in Adobe during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Finally, Fortis Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in Adobe during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.79% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on ADBE. Bank of America lowered their price objective on shares of Adobe from $700.00 to $640.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 15th. Piper Sandler Companies decreased their price target on shares of Adobe from $705.00 to $700.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 15th. TheStreet downgraded shares of Adobe from a “b-” rating to a “c+” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Adobe from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $499.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Thursday, January 18th. Finally, KeyCorp started coverage on shares of Adobe in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. They issued an “underweight” rating and a $445.00 price target on the stock. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and twenty have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Adobe presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $620.72.

Insider Buying and Selling at Adobe

In other news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 788 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $615.42, for a total transaction of $484,950.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,055 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,495,528.10. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 788 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $615.42, for a total transaction of $484,950.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,055 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,495,528.10. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Scott Belsky sold 2,191 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $601.71, for a total value of $1,318,346.61. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 23,508 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,144,998.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 3,063 shares of company stock valued at $1,853,025. 0.15% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Adobe Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:ADBE traded up $6.12 on Tuesday, reaching $476.22. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,656,260 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,613,304. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $538.63 and a 200 day simple moving average of $567.86. The company has a market cap of $213.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.57, a PEG ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.05. Adobe Inc. has a 52-week low of $331.89 and a 52-week high of $638.25.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 14th. The software company reported $4.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.38 by $0.10. Adobe had a net margin of 24.08% and a return on equity of 39.12%. The firm had revenue of $5.18 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.14 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.97 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 11.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Adobe Inc. will post 14.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Adobe announced that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Thursday, March 14th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the software company to buy up to 10.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Adobe Company Profile

Adobe Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified software company worldwide. It operates through three segments: Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing and Advertising. The Digital Media segment offers products, services, and solutions that enable individuals, teams, and enterprises to create, publish, and promote content; and Document Cloud, a unified cloud-based document services platform.