Rakuten Securities Inc. Makes New $308,000 Investment in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)

Rakuten Securities Inc. acquired a new position in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 516 shares of the software company’s stock, valued at approximately $308,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Adobe by 1.5% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 18,632,322 shares of the software company’s stock worth $7,180,322,000 after acquiring an additional 269,173 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in shares of Adobe by 2.7% in 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 during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its stake in shares of Adobe by 3.9% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 5,358,515 shares of the software company’s stock worth $2,732,307,000 after acquiring an additional 202,136 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Adobe in the fourth quarter worth $1,757,029,000. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC grew its stake in shares of Adobe by 12.3% in the third quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 4,561,859 shares of the software company’s stock worth $2,326,092,000 after acquiring an additional 498,957 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 81.79% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently commented on ADBE. BNP Paribas cut Adobe from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $499.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $610.00 price objective on shares of Adobe in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. HSBC dropped their price objective on Adobe from $557.00 to $511.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 15th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Adobe in a research report on Thursday, March 28th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Adobe from $600.00 to $570.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and twenty have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Adobe currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $620.72.

Adobe Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ ADBE traded down $1.78 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $474.44. The company had a trading volume of 1,010,859 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,577,248. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $536.02 and a 200 day simple moving average of $567.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.05. Adobe Inc. has a 12 month low of $331.89 and a 12 month high of $638.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $212.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.55 and a beta of 1.28.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 14th. The software company reported $4.48 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.38 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $5.18 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.14 billion. Adobe had a return on equity of 39.12% and a net margin of 24.08%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.97 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Adobe Inc. will post 14.55 earnings per share for the current year.

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

Insider Activity at Adobe

In related news, EVP Scott Belsky sold 2,191 shares of Adobe stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $601.71, for a total transaction of $1,318,346.61. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 23,508 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,144,998.68. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Adobe news, EVP Scott Belsky sold 2,191 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $601.71, for a total transaction of $1,318,346.61. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 23,508 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,144,998.68. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 788 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $615.42, for a total value of $484,950.96. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,055 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,495,528.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.15% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.