Parsons (NYSE:PSN) Raised to “Buy” at TD Cowen

Parsons (NYSE:PSN) was upgraded by investment analysts at TD Cowen from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Friday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has a $90.00 price target on the stock, up from their prior price target of $77.00. TD Cowen’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 14.69% from the company’s current price.

PSN has been the topic of several other reports. Raymond James upgraded Parsons from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $82.00 to $95.00 in a research note on Wednesday. Truist Financial lifted their price target on shares of Parsons from $84.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Parsons from $73.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 16th. KeyCorp lifted their target price on Parsons from $89.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, April 19th. Finally, Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $68.00 target price on shares of Parsons in a report on Thursday, April 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $83.10.

Parsons Stock Performance

Shares of Parsons stock opened at $78.47 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56, a quick ratio of 1.52 and a current ratio of 1.79. Parsons has a 1 year low of $42.79 and a 1 year high of $85.44. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $80.90 and its 200-day simple moving average is $69.88. The firm has a market cap of $8.30 billion, a PE ratio of 435.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 0.86.

Parsons (NYSE:PSN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 14th. The company reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.56 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $1.50 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.33 billion. Parsons had a return on equity of 11.27% and a net margin of 0.49%. Parsons’s revenue for the quarter was up 36.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.45 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Parsons will post 2.57 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Parsons

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Parsons by 162.5% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,005,140 shares of the company’s stock worth $83,376,000 after purchasing an additional 622,243 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Parsons in the 4th quarter valued at about $37,854,000. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund bought a new position in Parsons in the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,952,000. Hennessy Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in Parsons during the 4th quarter valued at about $24,062,000. Finally, SW Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Parsons in the 4th quarter worth approximately $20,381,000. 98.02% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Parsons Company Profile

Parsons Corporation provides integrated solutions and services in the defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure markets in North America, the Middle East, and internationally. The company operates through Federal Solutions and Critical Infrastructure segments. The Federal Solutions segment provides critical technologies, such as cybersecurity; missile defense; intelligence; space launch and ground systems; space and weapon system resiliency; geospatial intelligence; signals intelligence; environmental remediation; border security, critical infrastructure protection; counter unmanned air systems; biometrics and bio surveillance solutions to U.S.