Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. Invests $449,000 in Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE:FI)

Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. bought a new position in shares of Fiserv, Inc. (NYSE:FI) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 3,381 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $449,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Piscataqua Savings Bank bought a new stake in Fiserv in the 4th quarter worth approximately $67,000. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in Fiserv in the 4th quarter worth approximately $78,000. Liberty Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Fiserv in the 4th quarter worth approximately $7,071,000. Birch Hill Investment Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Fiserv in the 4th quarter worth approximately $84,583,000. Finally, Graypoint LLC bought a new stake in Fiserv in the 4th quarter worth approximately $3,732,000. 90.98% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

FI has been the subject of several recent research reports. BNP Paribas upgraded Fiserv from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. KeyCorp upgraded Fiserv from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $180.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Tigress Financial boosted their price objective on Fiserv from $160.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 22nd. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Fiserv from $133.00 to $142.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Susquehanna upped their target price on Fiserv from $175.00 to $180.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Monday, March 25th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $158.21.

Fiserv Stock Performance

NYSE:FI opened at $146.40 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.04, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73. Fiserv, Inc. has a 12-month low of $109.11 and a 12-month high of $159.99. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $151.56 and a 200 day moving average price of $135.95. The stock has a market capitalization of $86.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.28, a P/E/G ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 0.91.

Fiserv (NYSE:FI) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The business services provider reported $2.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.15 by $0.04. Fiserv had a return on equity of 15.16% and a net margin of 16.07%. The firm had revenue of $4.92 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.68 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.91 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 6.2% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Fiserv, Inc. will post 8.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, COO Guy Chiarello sold 63,646 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total transaction of $9,801,484.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 163,699 shares in the company, valued at $25,209,646. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.75% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Fiserv Company Profile

Fiserv, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides payments and financial services technology services in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. It operates through Merchant Acceptance, Financial Technology, and Payments and Network segments.