Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. Increases Stock Holdings in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)

Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. lifted its stake in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) by 12.7% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 47,520 shares of the software company’s stock after buying an additional 5,355 shares during the period. Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P.’s holdings in Adobe were worth $24,605,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ADBE. Strategic Wealth Partners Ltd. lifted its holdings in Adobe by 11.4% during the 1st quarter. Strategic Wealth Partners Ltd. now owns 850 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $429,000 after buying an additional 87 shares in the last quarter. LRI Investments LLC bought a new stake in Adobe during the first quarter valued at about $190,000. Burney Co. boosted its position in Adobe by 1.8% during the first quarter. Burney Co. now owns 5,530 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $2,790,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. PGGM Investments boosted its position in Adobe by 1.4% during the first quarter. PGGM Investments now owns 43,900 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $22,152,000 after purchasing an additional 596 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its position in Adobe by 213.4% during the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 101,212 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $51,072,000 after purchasing an additional 68,921 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.79% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on ADBE. UBS Group dropped their price objective on Adobe from $560.00 to $550.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 13th. JMP Securities restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Adobe in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on Adobe from $600.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 6th. Citigroup lifted their price target on Adobe from $550.00 to $621.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 11th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $610.00 price objective on shares of Adobe in a report on Tuesday, October 15th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, eighteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Adobe has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $606.40.

Adobe Stock Down 2.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ ADBE traded down $11.62 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $513.68. 2,322,601 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,142,019. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 1.11. Adobe Inc. has a twelve month low of $433.97 and a twelve month high of $638.25. The company has a market cap of $226.12 billion, a PE ratio of 43.39, a P/E/G ratio of 2.67 and a beta of 1.30. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $503.39 and its 200-day simple moving average is $519.76.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, September 12th. The software company reported $4.65 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.53 by $0.12. Adobe had a net margin of 25.59% and a return on equity of 42.82%. The company had revenue of $5.41 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $3.26 EPS. Adobe’s quarterly revenue was up 10.6% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Adobe Inc. will post 14.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Daniel Durn sold 6,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $515.44, for a total value of $3,350,360.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 20,838 shares in the company, valued at $10,740,738.72. This trade represents a 23.78 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Shantanu Narayen sold 25,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $521.58, for a total transaction of $13,039,500.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 357,700 shares in the company, valued at approximately $186,569,166. This represents a 6.53 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 34,187 shares of company stock worth $17,736,369. Company insiders own 0.15% of the company’s stock.

Adobe 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.