HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSTM) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSTM) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the five analysts that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, two have assigned a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $31.50.

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of HealthStream in a report on Tuesday, February 25th. Canaccord Genuity Group decreased their price target on shares of HealthStream from $30.00 to $29.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 15th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On HealthStream

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. grew its holdings in HealthStream by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. Polar Asset Management Partners Inc. now owns 91,952 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,924,000 after acquiring an additional 35,252 shares during the last quarter. Stifel Financial Corp bought a new stake in HealthStream during the 4th quarter worth approximately $447,000. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in HealthStream by 2.4% during the 1st quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 424,790 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $13,670,000 after acquiring an additional 10,003 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its holdings in HealthStream by 4,108.5% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 66,999 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,082,000 after acquiring an additional 65,407 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sanctuary Advisors LLC grew its holdings in HealthStream by 4.8% during the 4th quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 15,445 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $507,000 after acquiring an additional 708 shares during the last quarter. 69.58% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

HealthStream Stock Performance

HSTM stock opened at $27.39 on Wednesday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $29.70 and its 200 day simple moving average is $31.39. HealthStream has a 52 week low of $25.84 and a 52 week high of $34.24. The company has a market capitalization of $835.94 million, a PE ratio of 43.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 0.43.

HealthStream (NASDAQ:HSTM) last released its earnings results on Monday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.14 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.16 by ($0.02). HealthStream had a net margin of 6.54% and a return on equity of 5.36%. The firm had revenue of $73.49 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $74.93 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.17 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that HealthStream will post 0.63 EPS for the current year.

HealthStream Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 30th. Investors of record on Monday, May 19th were issued a dividend of $0.031 per share. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 19th. HealthStream’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 19.05%.

HealthStream announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, May 8th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the technology company to repurchase up to 3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

About HealthStream

HealthStream, Inc provides Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based applications for healthcare organizations in the United States. The company’s solutions help healthcare organizations in meeting their ongoing clinical development, talent management, training, education, assessment, competency management, safety and compliance, and scheduling, as well as provider credentialing, privileging, and enrollment needs.