Raymond James Financial Inc. Takes Position in Progress Software Co. (NASDAQ:PRGS)

Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in Progress Software Co. (NASDAQ:PRGS) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 236,877 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $15,432,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. owned about 0.55% of Progress Software at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC grew its position in Progress Software by 893.5% during the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 765 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $50,000 after buying an additional 688 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in shares of Progress Software by 55.4% in the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,736 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $113,000 after purchasing an additional 619 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. raised its stake in shares of Progress Software by 23.2% in the 4th quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,091 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $141,000 after acquiring an additional 394 shares during the period. KBC Group NV increased its holdings in Progress Software by 44.5% in the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 2,335 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $152,000 after purchasing an additional 719 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Assetmark Inc. lifted its position in Progress Software by 6.6% during the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 3,301 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $215,000 after acquiring an additional 204 shares in the last quarter.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on PRGS. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 target price on shares of Progress Software in a research note on Tuesday, April 1st. DA Davidson dropped their price target on shares of Progress Software from $75.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Progress Software from $65.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Progress Software from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Progress Software from $65.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Progress Software has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $74.33.

Progress Software Price Performance

NASDAQ PRGS opened at $54.83 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $55.75 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $61.48. The stock has a market cap of $2.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.82 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a current ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.48. Progress Software Co. has a 52 week low of $48.00 and a 52 week high of $70.56.

Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, March 31st. The software maker reported $1.31 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.04 by $0.27. The company had revenue of $238.02 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $235.64 million. Progress Software had a return on equity of 41.56% and a net margin of 9.08%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.25 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Progress Software Co. will post 4.01 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Domenic Lococo sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $56,240.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,303 shares in the company, valued at $242,000.72. This trade represents a 18.86 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Ian Pitt sold 703 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.29, for a total transaction of $39,571.87. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 8,317 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $468,163.93. This represents a 7.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 18,185 shares of company stock worth $1,024,193 over the last 90 days. 3.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Progress Software

Progress Software Corporation develops, deploys, and manages business applications in the United States and internationally. The company offers OpenEdge, an application development platform for running business-critical applications; Chef, a DevOps/DevSecOps automation software; Developer Tools that consists of software development tooling collection, including .NET and JavaScript UI components for web, desktop and mobile applications, reporting and report management tools, and automated testing and mocking tools; Kemp LoadMaster, an application delivery and security product offering cloud-native, and virtual and hardware load balancers; and Sitefinity, a digital experience platform foundation delivering intelligent and ROI-driving tools for marketers.