NICE (NASDAQ:NICE) Stock Rating Upgraded by StockNews.com

NICE (NASDAQ:NICE) was upgraded by research analysts at StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report released on Thursday.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Mizuho began coverage on NICE in a report on Tuesday, May 30th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $244.00 target price on the stock. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $343.00 price objective on shares of NICE in a research note on Friday, August 18th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $238.00 price objective on shares of NICE in a research note on Friday, August 18th. William Blair assumed coverage on NICE in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. They set an “outperform” rating on the stock. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on NICE from $278.00 to $338.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $260.00.

NICE Trading Down 1.5 %

Shares of NICE stock opened at $176.46 on Thursday. NICE has a 12-month low of $164.65 and a 12-month high of $231.54. The company has a current ratio of 2.31, a quick ratio of 2.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $204.19 and its 200-day moving average price is $206.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 0.86.

NICE (NASDAQ:NICE) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, August 17th. The technology company reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.05 by $0.08. NICE had a return on equity of 12.80% and a net margin of 13.48%. The firm had revenue of $581.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $579.30 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.33 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that NICE will post 6.49 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. grew its stake in shares of NICE by 9.9% during the first quarter. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. now owns 554 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $127,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of NICE by 0.3% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,955 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,878,000 after buying an additional 51 shares during the last quarter. Capital Insight Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of NICE by 3.4% during the first quarter. Capital Insight Partners LLC now owns 1,590 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $364,000 after buying an additional 52 shares during the last quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. grew its stake in shares of NICE by 3.1% during the first quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 1,784 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $408,000 after buying an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Loomis Sayles & Co. L P boosted its holdings in shares of NICE by 25.2% in the first quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 298 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $65,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 63.58% of the company’s stock.

About NICE

NICE Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides cloud platforms for AI-driven digital business solutions worldwide. It offers CXone, a cloud native open platform; Enlighten, an AI engine for CX that discovers automation opportunities for self-service; digital-entry points solutions that enable organizations to address consumers' needs; and journey orchestration solutions that empower organizations to connect and route customers to deal with the customer's request, and connects them using real time AI-based routing.