Mark S. Garfield Sells 96 Shares of Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) Stock

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 96 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $470.00, for a total transaction of $45,120.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,128 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,940,160. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link.

Adobe Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ:ADBE opened at $473.18 on Friday. Adobe Inc. has a 52-week low of $331.89 and a 52-week high of $638.25. The company has a market capitalization of $211.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $530.33 and a 200 day simple moving average of $566.32. 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 (NASDAQ:ADBE) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 14th. The software company reported $4.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.38 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $5.18 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.14 billion. Adobe had a net margin of 24.08% and a return on equity of 39.12%. Adobe’s revenue was up 11.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.97 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Adobe Inc. will post 14.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Adobe announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Thursday, March 14th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the software company to repurchase up to 10.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Adobe

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Adobe by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 40,266,172 shares of the software company’s stock worth $24,022,798,000 after acquiring an additional 603,302 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in Adobe by 1.5% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 18,632,322 shares of the software company’s stock worth $7,180,322,000 after acquiring an additional 269,173 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its position in Adobe by 2.7% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 10,371,262 shares of the software company’s stock worth $5,288,309,000 after acquiring an additional 277,484 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in Adobe by 10.0% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 6,497,332 shares of the software company’s stock worth $3,876,309,000 after acquiring an additional 590,533 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Adobe in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $3,277,785,000. 81.79% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ADBE has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. TD Cowen lowered their price objective on shares of Adobe from $650.00 to $640.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 15th. KeyCorp started coverage on Adobe in a report on Thursday, March 21st. They set an “underweight” rating and a $445.00 target price for the company. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on Adobe from $650.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 15th. Evercore ISI reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $650.00 target price on shares of Adobe in a report on Wednesday, March 27th. Finally, HSBC lowered their target price on Adobe from $557.00 to $511.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and twenty have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $620.72.

About Adobe

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.