Ameriprise Financial Inc. Grows Position in Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP)

Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP) by 16.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 607,902 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 86,868 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. owned about 3.03% of Simulations Plus worth $16,954,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in SLP. Jones Financial Companies Lllp boosted its holdings in Simulations Plus by 53.6% in the fourth quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 1,223 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 427 shares in the last quarter. Pitcairn Co. grew its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 10.8% during the fourth quarter. Pitcairn Co. now owns 7,310 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $204,000 after acquiring an additional 711 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE grew its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 14.3% during the fourth quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 5,687 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $159,000 after acquiring an additional 713 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 2.7% during the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 29,229 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $815,000 after acquiring an additional 756 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC grew its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 42.2% during the fourth quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 2,575 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $72,000 after acquiring an additional 764 shares during the last quarter. 78.08% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on SLP. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of Simulations Plus from $32.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Simulations Plus from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, April 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $50.00.

Simulations Plus Stock Performance

Shares of SLP opened at $31.53 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $634.10 million, a P/E ratio of 78.83 and a beta of 1.10. The company’s fifty day moving average is $29.06 and its two-hundred day moving average is $30.25. Simulations Plus, Inc. has a 1 year low of $23.01 and a 1 year high of $50.98.

Simulations Plus (NASDAQ:SLP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The technology company reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $22.43 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $21.93 million. Simulations Plus had a net margin of 10.97% and a return on equity of 6.84%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 22.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.20 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Simulations Plus, Inc. will post 1.09 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Walter S. Woltosz sold 20,000 shares of Simulations Plus stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $33.51, for a total value of $670,200.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 3,344,157 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $112,062,701.07. The trade was a 0.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders own 19.40% of the company’s stock.

Simulations Plus Company 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.