CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) to Buyback $500.00 million in Stock

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) announced that its board has authorized a share buyback program on Tuesday, February 18th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $500.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization permits the technology company to reacquire up to 1.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have weighed in on CSGP. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of CoStar Group from $88.00 to $86.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 price objective on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Monday, December 16th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $83.00 target price on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on CoStar Group from $65.00 to $63.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on shares of CoStar Group from $78.00 to $75.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, CoStar Group currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $88.00.

CoStar Group Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:CSGP opened at $78.35 on Friday. CoStar Group has a one year low of $68.26 and a one year high of $100.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 9.63 and a quick ratio of 9.63. The company has a market cap of $32.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 223.84 and a beta of 0.87. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $73.82 and a 200 day simple moving average of $75.37.

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 18th. The technology company reported $0.22 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.22. The company had revenue of $709.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $703.00 million. CoStar Group had a return on equity of 3.13% and a net margin of 5.07%. Research analysts predict that CoStar Group will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at CoStar Group

In other CoStar Group news, insider Michael J. Desmarais sold 5,500 shares of CoStar Group stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.88, for a total transaction of $439,340.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 58,798 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,696,784.24. The trade was a 8.55 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 1.57% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About CoStar Group

CoStar Group, Inc provides information, analytics, and online marketplace services to the commercial real estate, hospitality, residential, and related professionals industries in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The company offers CoStar Property that provides inventory of office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, and student housing properties and land; CoStar Sales, a robust database of comparable commercial real estate sales transactions; CoStar Market Analytics to view and report on aggregated market and submarket trends; and CoStar Tenant, an online business-to-business prospecting and analytical tool that provides tenant information.