Shantanu Narayen Sells 25,000 Shares of Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) Stock

Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) CEO Shantanu Narayen sold 25,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $544.11, for a total value of $13,602,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 379,660 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $206,576,802.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Adobe Stock Performance

Adobe stock opened at $555.54 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $246.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 1.16 and a quick ratio of 1.05. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $485.04 and a 200-day simple moving average of $534.90. Adobe Inc. has a 1-year low of $433.97 and a 1-year high of $638.25.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, June 13th. The software company reported $4.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.39 by $0.09. Adobe had a return on equity of 40.67% and a net margin of 24.86%. The company had revenue of $5.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.29 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.04 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 10.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Adobe Inc. will post 14.69 EPS for the current year.

Adobe declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback program on Thursday, March 14th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the software company to reacquire up to 10.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have issued reports on ADBE shares. KeyCorp boosted their price target on Adobe from $445.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Friday, June 14th. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price target on shares of Adobe from $653.00 to $660.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, June 17th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $600.00 price objective on shares of Adobe in a report on Friday, June 14th. HSBC lowered their target price on shares of Adobe from $557.00 to $511.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 15th. Finally, TheStreet cut Adobe from a “b-” rating to a “c+” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 19th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and twenty-one have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Adobe currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $607.67.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Adobe

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Adobe by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 40,648,975 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $20,511,473,000 after purchasing an additional 382,803 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in shares of Adobe by 2.7% in the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 10,371,262 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $5,288,309,000 after buying an additional 277,484 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in Adobe by 17.6% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 7,644,050 shares of the software company’s stock worth $3,857,189,000 after acquiring an additional 1,146,718 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Adobe during the 4th quarter valued at about $3,277,785,000. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its stake in Adobe by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,560,086 shares of the software company’s stock worth $2,720,548,000 after purchasing an additional 16,379 shares during the period. 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.