Principal Financial Group Inc. Sells 58,713 Shares of Simulations Plus, Inc. $SLP

Principal Financial Group Inc. decreased its holdings in Simulations Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:SLP) by 64.4% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 32,399 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 58,713 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Simulations Plus were worth $488,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Tributary Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Simulations Plus by 214.7% during the 3rd quarter. Tributary Capital Management LLC now owns 1,136,980 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $17,134,000 after acquiring an additional 775,704 shares in the last quarter. First Light Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Simulations Plus in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $6,232,000. Stephens Investment Management Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Simulations Plus during the second quarter valued at $4,687,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in Simulations Plus by 25.3% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 875,447 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $15,277,000 after purchasing an additional 176,747 shares during the last quarter. Finally, North Star Investment Management Corp. lifted its stake in shares of Simulations Plus by 195.6% in the third quarter. North Star Investment Management Corp. now owns 168,130 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,534,000 after acquiring an additional 111,255 shares during the period. 78.08% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on SLP. Zacks Research lowered shares of Simulations Plus from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Citigroup reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Simulations Plus in a report on Tuesday, January 6th. KeyCorp reissued a “sector weight” rating on shares of Simulations Plus in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. TD Cowen reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Simulations Plus in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. Finally, BTIG Research downgraded Simulations Plus from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 18th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $25.00.

Simulations Plus Stock Performance

Shares of SLP opened at $12.21 on Friday. Simulations Plus, Inc. has a 52-week low of $11.60 and a 52-week high of $36.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $246.03 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.82 and a beta of 1.12. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $17.60 and its 200 day simple moving average is $16.52.

Simulations Plus (NASDAQ:SLP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 8th. The technology company reported $0.13 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.18 by ($0.05). Simulations Plus had a negative net margin of 81.66% and a positive return on equity of 14.02%. The firm had revenue of $18.42 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $18.05 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.17 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Simulations Plus, Inc. will post 1.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Simulations Plus Profile

Simulations Plus, Inc (NASDAQ: SLP) specializes in advanced modeling and simulation software tailored to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and chemical industries. The company’s flagship products include ADMET Predictor, a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) tool for predicting absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity properties, and GastroPlus, a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling platform for simulating drug absorption and pharmacokinetics.