ePlus (NASDAQ:PLUS) Shares Up 4.7% on Better-Than-Expected Earnings

ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS) shot up 4.7% on Friday after the company announced better than expected quarterly earnings. The stock traded as high as $71.35 and last traded at $68.75. 45,216 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 79% from the average session volume of 210,833 shares. The stock had previously closed at $65.69.

The software maker reported $0.95 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.08. ePlus had a net margin of 4.93% and a return on equity of 11.23%. The firm had revenue of $498.11 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $523.85 million.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of ePlus from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in PLUS. Castlekeep Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of ePlus during the fourth quarter valued at about $127,898,000. Mirabella Financial Services LLP acquired a new position in shares of ePlus during the fourth quarter valued at about $43,517,000. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. acquired a new position in shares of ePlus during the fourth quarter valued at about $15,590,000. Swedbank AB acquired a new position in shares of ePlus during the fourth quarter valued at about $11,082,000. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. grew its holdings in shares of ePlus by 18.2% during the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 790,332 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $58,390,000 after buying an additional 121,945 shares during the last quarter. 93.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

ePlus Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $1.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.08, a PEG ratio of 1.83 and a beta of 1.12. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $62.19 and its 200-day moving average price is $71.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 1.83 and a quick ratio of 1.69.

ePlus Company Profile

ePlus inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) solutions that enable organizations to optimize their IT environment and supply chain processes in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Technology and Financing. The Technology segment offers hardware, perpetual and subscription software, maintenance, software assurance, and internally provided and outsourced services; managed services or infrastructure and cloud; and enhanced maintenance support, service desk, storage-as-a-service, cloud hosted and managed, and managed security services; and professional, staff augmentation, cloud consulting, consulting, and security services.