Principal Financial Group Inc. Has $2.29 Million Stake in Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP)

Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP) by 2.4% during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 93,346 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,169 shares during the quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.46% of Simulations Plus worth $2,289,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 17.2% in the first quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,609,388 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $63,982,000 after acquiring an additional 383,126 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Simulations Plus by 16.7% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 607,902 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $16,954,000 after purchasing an additional 86,868 shares during the period. Janus Henderson Group PLC raised its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 7,753.3% in the fourth quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 542,899 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $15,141,000 after buying an additional 535,986 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Simulations Plus by 6.1% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 419,241 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $11,693,000 after buying an additional 24,266 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Kennedy Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Simulations Plus by 59.4% during the 4th quarter. Kennedy Capital Management LLC now owns 289,286 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $8,068,000 after acquiring an additional 107,766 shares during the period. 78.08% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Simulations Plus

In other Simulations Plus news, Director Walter S. Woltosz sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $33.51, for a total value of $670,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 3,344,157 shares in the company, valued at $112,062,701.07. This represents a 0.59% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 19.40% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on SLP. JMP Securities reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Simulations Plus in a research note on Wednesday, June 18th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Simulations Plus from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, April 28th. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Simulations Plus in a report on Tuesday. KeyCorp downgraded shares of Simulations Plus from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, BTIG Research cut their price objective on Simulations Plus from $41.00 to $25.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, July 7th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Simulations Plus presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $26.50.

Simulations Plus Stock Down 2.6%

Shares of NASDAQ SLP opened at $12.46 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $250.82 million, a PE ratio of -3.96 and a beta of 0.83. Simulations Plus, Inc. has a twelve month low of $12.39 and a twelve month high of $42.11. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $23.45 and a 200 day simple moving average of $27.97.

Simulations Plus (NASDAQ:SLP) last released its earnings results on Monday, July 14th. The technology company reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.19. Simulations Plus had a positive return on equity of 11.62% and a negative net margin of 78.63%. The business had revenue of $20.36 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $22.83 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Simulations Plus, Inc. will post 1.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Simulations Plus Profile

Simulations Plus, Inc develops drug discovery and development software for modeling and simulation, and prediction of molecular properties utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning based technology worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Software and Services. It offers GastroPlus, which simulates the absorption and drug interaction of compounds administered to humans and animals; and DDDPlus and MembranePlus simulation products.