StockNews.com Downgrades Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) to Hold

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) was downgraded by equities researchers at StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on HPE. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered Hewlett Packard Enterprise from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $20.00 to $17.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Evercore ISI decreased their target price on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $19.00 to $18.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Barclays decreased their target price on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating and set a $17.00 target price (down from $21.00) on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $17.45.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Price Performance

NYSE:HPE opened at $17.42 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.01, a PEG ratio of 3.33 and a beta of 1.21. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a 1 year low of $13.65 and a 1 year high of $20.07. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $16.70 and a 200-day simple moving average of $16.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 0.89 and a quick ratio of 0.63.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The technology company reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.45 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $6.76 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.09 billion. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a return on equity of 9.12% and a net margin of 6.81%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 13.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.38 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.4 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in HPE. Two Sigma Advisers LP lifted its holdings in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 302.9% in the 1st quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 4,865,700 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $77,511,000 after buying an additional 3,658,100 shares during the period. Deutsche Bank AG raised its holdings in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 47.8% in the 1st quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 9,574,800 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $152,527,000 after purchasing an additional 3,097,741 shares during the period. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. acquired a new position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 4th quarter worth about $51,384,000. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the 4th quarter worth approximately $48,291,000. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 193.2% during the 1st quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 4,273,700 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $68,080,000 after buying an additional 2,816,100 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.78% of the company’s stock.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company Profile

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. It operates in six segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other.