Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) Hits New 1-Year Low on Insider Selling

Progress Software Co. (NASDAQ:PRGS) hit a new 52-week low during trading on Tuesday after an insider sold shares in the company. The stock traded as low as $49.00 and last traded at $50.10, with a volume of 30059 shares. The stock had previously closed at $50.06.

Specifically, CEO Yogesh K. Gupta sold 40,174 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.95, for a total transaction of $2,287,909.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 186,558 shares in the company, valued at $10,624,478.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Progress Software news, CAO Domenic Lococo sold 4,503 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.00, for a total value of $256,671.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 2,900 shares in the company, valued at approximately $165,300. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Yogesh K. Gupta sold 40,174 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.95, for a total value of $2,287,909.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 186,558 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,624,478.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 101,248 shares of company stock worth $5,632,902 over the last quarter. 3.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on PRGS. Wedbush upped their price objective on Progress Software from $65.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. StockNews.com raised Progress Software from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. DA Davidson began coverage on Progress Software in a research report on Thursday, March 28th. They set a “buy” rating and a $65.00 price target on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on Progress Software from $65.00 to $63.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. Finally, Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $66.00 price target on shares of Progress Software in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Progress Software currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $64.60.

Progress Software Price Performance

The business has a fifty day moving average of $53.46 and a 200-day moving average of $53.74. The firm has a market cap of $2.23 billion, a PE ratio of 32.94, a PEG ratio of 6.63 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a current ratio of 0.95, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50.

Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, March 26th. The software maker reported $1.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.14 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $184.69 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $181.91 million. Progress Software had a return on equity of 36.62% and a net margin of 9.67%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.01 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Progress Software Co. will post 3.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Progress Software Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 3rd will be issued a $0.175 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 31st. This represents a $0.70 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.38%. Progress Software’s payout ratio is currently 45.45%.

Institutional Trading of Progress Software

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. GAMMA Investing LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Progress Software in the 4th quarter valued at about $28,000. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Progress Software in the 3rd quarter valued at about $40,000. Orion Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Progress Software in the 3rd quarter valued at about $41,000. Clear Street Markets LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Progress Software in the 3rd quarter valued at about $50,000. Finally, Ronald Blue Trust Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Progress Software by 353.0% in the 3rd quarter. Ronald Blue Trust Inc. now owns 992 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $52,000 after acquiring an additional 773 shares in the last quarter.

About Progress Software

Progress Software Corporation develops, deploys, and manages business applications in the United States and internationally. 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, an 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.