Dimensional Fund Advisors LP Boosts Stock Holdings in SAP SE (NYSE:SAP)

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) by 13.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 57,264 shares of the software maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 6,704 shares during the quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP’s holdings in SAP were worth $14,099,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. WCM Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of SAP in the fourth quarter worth about $290,023,000. TD Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in SAP by 125.0% in the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,602,548 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $394,563,000 after acquiring an additional 890,157 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in shares of SAP by 145.5% during the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,346,506 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $331,523,000 after acquiring an additional 798,037 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new position in shares of SAP during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $163,630,000. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in shares of SAP in the fourth quarter valued at $150,668,000.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on SAP shares. JMP Securities increased their price objective on shares of SAP from $300.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 29th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on shares of SAP from $300.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 23rd. TD Cowen raised SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $240.00 to $305.00 in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of SAP in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Finally, Kepler Capital Markets raised SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat, SAP currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $264.00.

SAP Stock Performance

Shares of SAP stock opened at $294.31 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.10, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $269.93 and its two-hundred day moving average is $260.67. SAP SE has a 52 week low of $179.43 and a 52 week high of $303.40. The company has a market capitalization of $361.56 billion, a PE ratio of 102.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.71 and a beta of 1.35.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 22nd. The software maker reported $1.51 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.39 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $10.35 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.08 billion. SAP had a net margin of 9.17% and a return on equity of 12.18%. As a group, analysts expect that SAP SE will post 6.55 earnings per share for the current year.

SAP Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared an annual dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 23rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 13th will be issued a $2.5423 dividend. This is a positive change from SAP’s previous annual dividend of $2.39. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 13th. This represents a dividend yield of 0.8%. SAP’s payout ratio is presently 35.25%.

SAP Company Profile

SAP SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides applications, technology, and services worldwide. It offers SAP S/4HANA that provides software capabilities for finance, risk and project management, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and asset management, and research and development; SAP SuccessFactors solutions for human resources, including HR and payroll, talent and employee experience management, and people and workforce analytics; and spend management solutions that covers direct and indirect spend, travel and expense, and external workforce management.