Strs Ohio Decreases Position in ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS)

Strs Ohio lessened its holdings in ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS) by 9.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 12,100 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 1,300 shares during the period. Strs Ohio’s holdings in ePlus were worth $966,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC purchased a new position in ePlus in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Operose Advisors LLC purchased a new position in ePlus in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $33,000. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale purchased a new position in ePlus in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $98,000. Caprock Group LLC purchased a new position in ePlus in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $219,000. Finally, AlphaQ Advisors LLC purchased a new position in ePlus in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $253,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.80% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director John E. Callies sold 1,308 shares of ePlus stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.17, for a total transaction of $103,554.36. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 20,493 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,622,430.81. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 2.41% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

ePlus Price Performance

ePlus stock opened at $80.11 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $2.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.90 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $78.49 and a 200-day simple moving average of $73.26. ePlus inc. has a 12-month low of $41.71 and a 12-month high of $83.57. The company has a current ratio of 1.93, a quick ratio of 1.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01.

ePlus (NASDAQ:PLUS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The software maker reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.24 by ($0.22). ePlus had a return on equity of 15.26% and a net margin of 5.86%. The company had revenue of $509.06 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $598.25 million. Equities analysts expect that ePlus inc. will post 4.59 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of ePlus from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, April 15th. Sidoti cut shares of ePlus from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $83.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Monday, January 8th.

ePlus 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 in two segments, Technology and Financing. The Technology segment offers hardware, perpetual and subscription software, maintenance, software assurance, and internally provided and outsourced services; and professional and managed services, including managed, professional, security solutions, cloud consulting and hosting, staff augmentation, storage-as-a-service, server and desktop support, and project management services.