Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) Stock Rating Upgraded by Barclays

Barclays upgraded shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have $24.00 target price on the technology company’s stock, up from their previous target price of $20.00.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on HPE. Bank of America raised shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a neutral rating to a buy rating and upped their target price for the company from $21.00 to $24.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their target price on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $17.00 to $19.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 5th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $19.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 5th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an equal weight rating and issued a $21.00 price objective on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a research report on Thursday, June 20th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $18.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 5th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $21.31.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Stock Performance

Shares of HPE stock opened at $20.14 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.94, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a 12 month low of $14.47 and a 12 month high of $22.82. The company has a market cap of $26.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.70, a PEG ratio of 3.05 and a beta of 1.19. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $18.56 and a 200 day moving average price of $18.67.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The technology company reported $0.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.03. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a return on equity of 8.94% and a net margin of 6.39%. The firm had revenue of $7.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.67 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.35 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 19th will be issued a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.58%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 19th. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.96%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Antonio F. Neri sold 83,334 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.72, for a total value of $1,643,346.48. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,758,641 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,680,400.52. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In related news, CEO Antonio F. Neri sold 83,334 shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.72, for a total transaction of $1,643,346.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,758,641 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,680,400.52. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Neil B. Macdonald sold 29,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $17.00, for a total value of $493,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 82,061 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,395,037. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.40% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Hewlett Packard Enterprise

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 14,953.2% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 23,189,645 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $490,925,000 after acquiring an additional 23,035,594 shares during the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP increased its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 3,228.2% in the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 8,825,249 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $186,831,000 after purchasing an additional 8,560,086 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 3.7% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,853,093 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,869,655,000 after purchasing an additional 5,777,901 shares during the last quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 336.7% during the second quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 4,269,603 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $90,387,000 after buying an additional 3,291,880 shares during the period. Finally, Epoch Investment Partners Inc. acquired a new stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 4th quarter worth about $51,384,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.78% of the company’s stock.

About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. It operates in six segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other.