Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD. Increases Position in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)

Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD. increased its holdings in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) by 115.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,586 shares of the software company’s stock after acquiring an additional 850 shares during the period. Asahi Life Asset Management CO. LTD.’s holdings in Adobe were worth $705,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Proficio Capital Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Adobe by 82,528.8% during the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,042,775 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $463,701,000 after purchasing an additional 1,041,513 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in Adobe by 8.8% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 9,690,163 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $5,017,373,000 after buying an additional 787,356 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in Adobe by 42.3% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 1,168,584 shares of the software company’s stock worth $519,646,000 after buying an additional 347,536 shares during the last quarter. Seilern Investment Management Ltd bought a new stake in Adobe in the fourth quarter worth about $110,744,000. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH purchased a new position in Adobe in the third quarter valued at about $126,703,000. 81.79% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently weighed in on ADBE. Barclays cut their price target on Adobe from $675.00 to $645.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on shares of Adobe from $570.00 to $515.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on Adobe from $650.00 to $600.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Citigroup cut their price target on Adobe from $616.00 to $590.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Redburn Atlantic began coverage on Adobe in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. They set a “neutral” rating on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating, seventeen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $570.88.

Adobe Stock Performance

Adobe stock opened at $438.49 on Friday. Adobe Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $403.75 and a fifty-two week high of $587.75. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $439.71 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $490.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.07. The stock has a market cap of $190.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.36, a PEG ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 1.31.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 11th. The software company reported $4.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.67 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $5.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.54 billion. Adobe had a return on equity of 45.87% and a net margin of 25.85%. The firm’s revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.52 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Adobe Inc. will post 16.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Adobe

In related news, Director Amy Banse sold 606 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $550.00, for a total transaction of $333,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 32,929 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,110,950. This trade represents a 1.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Jillian Forusz sold 334 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $435.83, for a total value of $145,567.22. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 2,685 shares in the company, valued at $1,170,203.55. This trade represents a 11.06 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 5,681 shares of company stock valued at $2,525,126 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.15% of the company’s stock.

About Adobe

Adobe Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified software company worldwide. It operates through three segments: Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing and Advertising. The Digital Media segment offers products, services, and solutions that enable individuals, teams, and enterprises to create, publish, and promote content; and Document Cloud, a unified cloud-based document services platform.