Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE – Get Rating) shares gapped down before the market opened on Thursday after the company announced weaker than expected quarterly earnings. The stock had previously closed at $15.78, but opened at $14.90. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shares last traded at $14.35, with a volume of 116,053 shares. The technology company reported $0.44 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.45 by ($0.01). Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a return on equity of 20.07% and a net margin of 13.32%. The firm had revenue of $6.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.80 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.19 earnings per share. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s revenue for the quarter was up .0% compared to the same quarter last year.
The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 8th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.12 per share. This represents a $0.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.27%. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s dividend payout ratio is currently 17.27%.
A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Bank of America lowered shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $19.00 to $16.00 in a report on Friday, May 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $18.00 in a report on Wednesday, May 25th. KGI Securities began coverage on Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a report on Tuesday, April 19th. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. Barclays dropped their price objective on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $19.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $20.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, March 2nd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $17.11.
Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of HPE. Financial Management Professionals Inc. grew its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 155.9% in the 4th quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc. now owns 1,617 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 985 shares in the last quarter. Elmwood Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. DeDora Capital Inc. purchased a new stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the 1st quarter worth approximately $30,000. Delos Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the 4th quarter valued at $33,000. Finally, First Quadrant LLC CA bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the first quarter worth $36,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.70% of the company’s stock.
The stock has a market cap of $19.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.16, a P/E/G ratio of 2.81 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50, a quick ratio of 0.68 and a current ratio of 0.94. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $15.85 and a 200-day moving average price of $16.03.
About Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE)
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. The company offers general purpose servers for multi-workload computing and workload-optimized servers; HPE ProLiant rack and tower servers; HPE BladeSystem and HPE Synergy; and solutions for secondary workloads and traditional tape, storage networking, and disk products, such as HPE Modular Storage Arrays and HPE XP