SAP (NYSE:SAP) Shares Gap Up – Time to Buy?

Shares of SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) gapped up before the market opened on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $149.51, but opened at $154.72. SAP shares last traded at $154.1260, with a volume of 643,665 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on shares of SAP from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 24th. Piper Sandler cut shares of SAP from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of SAP from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 11th. HSBC upgraded shares of SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Finally, Zacks Research cut SAP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have issued a Buy rating and seven have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $283.40.

SAP Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a current ratio of 1.07 and a quick ratio of 1.07. The company has a market capitalization of $187.77 billion, a PE ratio of 20.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.75 and a beta of 1.12. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $172.08 and its 200-day simple moving average is $197.54.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 27th. The software maker reported $1.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The business had revenue of $11.06 billion for the quarter. SAP had a net margin of 20.08% and a return on equity of 17.31%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that SAP SE will post 8.36 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

SAP Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced an annual dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 5th were issued a dividend of $2.9291 per share. This is a boost from SAP’s previous annual dividend of $2.54. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 5th. This represents a yield of 170.0%. SAP’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 28.92%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of SAP. Windacre Partnership LLC boosted its stake in shares of SAP by 130.9% in the 3rd quarter. Windacre Partnership LLC now owns 2,357,225 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $629,874,000 after buying an additional 1,336,325 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in SAP by 58.1% in the second quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 2,650,418 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $805,992,000 after acquiring an additional 973,779 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership purchased a new position in SAP in the first quarter worth approximately $150,701,000. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP lifted its stake in SAP by 1,126.3% in the third quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP now owns 842,416 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $225,102,000 after acquiring an additional 773,720 shares during the last quarter. Finally, M&T Bank Corp grew its holdings in SAP by 1,582.7% during the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 817,295 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $198,529,000 after acquiring an additional 768,725 shares in the last quarter.

About SAP

SAP SE is a global enterprise software company headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. Founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers, the company’s name is an acronym for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing). SAP develops and sells software and services that help organizations manage business processes across finance, human resources, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and customer relationships.

SAP’s product portfolio spans on?premises and cloud offerings, anchored by its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions such as SAP S/4HANA and the SAP HANA in?memory database and platform.