Royal Bank of Canada Reiterates Outperform Rating for Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE)

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reiterated by stock analysts at Royal Bank of Canada in a research note issued to investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $600.00 price target on the software company’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 14.22% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other research firms have also recently issued reports on ADBE. Melius Research reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $510.00 target price on shares of Adobe in a research note on Monday, June 10th. Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $580.00 target price on shares of Adobe in a research note on Friday. TD Cowen dropped their price target on shares of Adobe from $640.00 to $625.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, June 10th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Adobe from $600.00 to $540.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 15th. Finally, TheStreet lowered Adobe from a “b-” rating to a “c+” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and twenty have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Adobe presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $604.35.

Adobe Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:ADBE opened at $525.31 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $235.34 billion, a PE ratio of 47.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.27. Adobe has a fifty-two week low of $433.97 and a fifty-two week high of $638.25. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $474.63 and a 200 day simple moving average of $540.63. The company has a quick ratio of 1.05, a current ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, June 13th. The software company reported $4.48 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.39 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $5.31 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.29 billion. Adobe had a return on equity of 39.98% and a net margin of 24.86%. Adobe’s quarterly revenue was up 10.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.04 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Adobe will post 14.55 EPS for the current year.

Adobe announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, March 14th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the software company to repurchase up to 10.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity at Adobe

In other Adobe news, EVP Scott Belsky sold 2,713 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $474.30, for a total transaction of $1,286,775.90. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 21,114 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,014,370.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other Adobe news, EVP Scott Belsky sold 2,713 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $474.30, for a total transaction of $1,286,775.90. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 21,114 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,014,370.20. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Anil Chakravarthy sold 100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $471.00, for a total value of $47,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 33,609 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,829,839. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 3,006 shares of company stock worth $1,424,432 in the last quarter. 0.15% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Adobe

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Adobe by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 40,648,975 shares of the software company’s stock worth $20,511,473,000 after buying an additional 382,803 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in shares of Adobe by 2.7% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 10,371,262 shares of the software company’s stock worth $5,288,309,000 after acquiring an additional 277,484 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its position in Adobe by 17.6% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 7,644,050 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $3,857,189,000 after purchasing an additional 1,146,718 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Adobe in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,277,785,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in shares of Adobe by 3.9% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 5,358,515 shares of the software company’s stock worth $2,732,307,000 after purchasing an additional 202,136 shares in the last quarter. 81.79% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Adobe Company Profile

Adobe Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified software company worldwide. It operates through three segments: Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing and Advertising. The Digital Media segment offers products, services, and solutions that enable individuals, teams, and enterprises to create, publish, and promote content; and Document Cloud, a unified cloud-based document services platform.