Investors Buy Large Volume of Put Options on CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP)

CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Investors bought 3,531 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 129% compared to the typical volume of 1,541 put options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on CSGP. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of CoStar Group in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $100.00 target price on shares of CoStar Group in a research report on Monday, December 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on shares of CoStar Group from $108.00 to $99.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stephens restated an “overweight” rating and set a $103.00 price objective on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, JMP Securities reiterated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 target price on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Monday, December 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $92.92.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other CoStar Group news, Director Michael R. Klein sold 71,633 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.69, for a total value of $5,350,268.77. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,913,501 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $142,919,389.69. This trade represents a 3.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Michael J. Desmarais sold 5,500 shares of CoStar Group stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.88, for a total transaction of $439,340.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 58,798 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,696,784.24. This represents a 8.55 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 1.57% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of CoStar Group

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CSGP. Vulcan Value Partners LLC boosted its holdings in CoStar Group by 90.1% during the second quarter. Vulcan Value Partners LLC now owns 4,138,987 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $306,831,000 after purchasing an additional 1,961,917 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC lifted its position in CoStar Group by 91.4% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 2,249,188 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $169,678,000 after buying an additional 1,073,793 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in shares of CoStar Group by 73.8% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,358,331 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $177,913,000 after buying an additional 1,001,177 shares during the last quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. bought a new position in shares of CoStar Group in the 2nd quarter valued at about $60,761,000. Finally, State Street Corp increased its position in shares of CoStar Group by 4.4% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 17,059,744 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,286,987,000 after acquiring an additional 722,153 shares during the last quarter. 96.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

CoStar Group Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ CSGP opened at $73.42 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $74.80 and a 200 day moving average price of $75.34. The firm has a market cap of $30.10 billion, a PE ratio of 166.87 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a current ratio of 9.63, a quick ratio of 9.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. CoStar Group has a 1-year low of $68.26 and a 1-year high of $100.38.

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The technology company reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.06. CoStar Group had a return on equity of 3.53% and a net margin of 6.57%. The business had revenue of $692.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $695.91 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.25 earnings per share. CoStar Group’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that CoStar Group will post 0.52 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CoStar Group Company Profile

CoStar Group, Inc provides information, analytics, and online marketplace services to the commercial real estate, hospitality, residential, and related professionals industries in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The company offers CoStar Property that provides inventory of office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, and student housing properties and land; CoStar Sales, a robust database of comparable commercial real estate sales transactions; CoStar Market Analytics to view and report on aggregated market and submarket trends; and CoStar Tenant, an online business-to-business prospecting and analytical tool that provides tenant information.