Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) Reaches New 12-Month High at $61.98

Progress Software Co. (NASDAQ:PRGS) hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $61.98 and last traded at $61.87, with a volume of 100427 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $60.60.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have issued reports on PRGS. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Progress Software in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a “buy” rating for the company. Oppenheimer upped their price target on shares of Progress Software from $63.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, June 30th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Progress Software from $57.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 8th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Progress Software presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.80.

Progress Software Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.85, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $58.55 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $57.68. The company has a market capitalization of $2.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.33, a PEG ratio of 8.71 and a beta of 0.92.

Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 29th. The software maker reported $1.06 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.90 by $0.16. Progress Software had a net margin of 12.49% and a return on equity of 40.44%. The company had revenue of $179.23 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $169.78 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.87 earnings per share. Progress Software’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Progress Software Co. will post 3.48 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Progress Software Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 1st will be issued a $0.175 dividend. This represents a $0.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.14%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, August 31st. Progress Software’s payout ratio is 38.04%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Progress Software news, insider Kathryn Kulikoski sold 2,122 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.87, for a total value of $122,800.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,216 shares in the company, valued at $301,849.92. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Progress Software news, insider Kathryn Kulikoski sold 2,122 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.87, for a total value of $122,800.14. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,216 shares in the company, valued at $301,849.92. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Anthony Folger sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.99, for a total transaction of $589,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 20,098 shares in the company, valued at $1,185,581.02. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 17,396 shares of company stock worth $1,024,807. 3.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in PRGS. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Progress Software by 285.8% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,050,744 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $60,365,000 after buying an additional 778,377 shares in the last quarter. Comerica Bank bought a new position in shares of Progress Software in the second quarter valued at $37,308,000. Mizuho Markets Cayman LP bought a new position in shares of Progress Software in the first quarter valued at $23,911,000. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Progress Software in the fourth quarter valued at $20,040,000. Finally, Natixis lifted its stake in shares of Progress Software by 102.8% in the fourth quarter. Natixis now owns 730,000 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $36,828,000 after buying an additional 370,000 shares in the last quarter.

Progress Software Company Profile

Progress Software Corporation develops, deploys, and manages business applications. The company offers OpenEdge, an application development platform for running business-critical applications; Chef, a DevOps/DevSecOps automation software; Developer Tools that consists of software development tooling collection including .NET and JavaScript UI components for web, desktop and mobile applications, reporting and report management tools, and automated testing and mocking tools; Kemp LoadMaster, a flexible application delivery and security product offering cloud-native, and virtual and hardware load balancers; and Sitefinity, a digital experience platform foundation delivering intelligent and ROI-driving tools for marketers.