Franklin Resources Inc. Trims Stock Holdings in Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR)

Franklin Resources Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) by 22.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 330,957 shares of the software’s stock after selling 97,326 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc.’s holdings in Altair Engineering were worth $36,111,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Altair Engineering by 4.8% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,894,230 shares of the software’s stock worth $752,229,000 after buying an additional 317,575 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in Altair Engineering by 3.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,053,957 shares of the software’s stock worth $196,173,000 after acquiring an additional 65,589 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Altair Engineering by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,423,880 shares of the software’s stock worth $136,020,000 after acquiring an additional 53,088 shares during the period. Magnetar Financial LLC acquired a new position in Altair Engineering in the 4th quarter valued at $62,142,000. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Altair Engineering during the 4th quarter worth $37,899,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 63.38% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Matthew Charles Brown sold 3,811 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $111.53, for a total value of $425,040.83. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 69,394 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,739,512.82. This represents a 5.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Teresa A. Harris sold 2,700 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.61, for a total value of $301,347.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 18,542 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,069,472.62. The trade was a 12.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 12,172 shares of company stock worth $1,356,847 over the last ninety days. 21.75% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ALTR. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $113.00 price objective on shares of Altair Engineering in a research report on Monday, February 24th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of Altair Engineering in a report on Friday, February 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and seven have given a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $100.83.

Altair Engineering Stock Performance

Shares of Altair Engineering stock opened at $111.85 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 657.94, a PEG ratio of 10.75 and a beta of 1.45. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $111.22 and its 200 day moving average price is $106.36. Altair Engineering Inc. has a twelve month low of $75.71 and a twelve month high of $113.12.

Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 20th. The software reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.51 by ($0.15). The firm had revenue of $192.63 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $182.98 million. Altair Engineering had a net margin of 2.13% and a return on equity of 8.08%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Altair Engineering Inc. will post 0.87 EPS for the current year.

About Altair Engineering

Altair Engineering Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of simulation and design, high-performance computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence in the United States and internationally. It operates in two segments, Software and Client Engineering Services.