Jeffrey Westphal Sells 2,485,000 Shares of Vertex, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERX) Stock

Vertex, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERX) major shareholder Jeffrey Westphal sold 2,485,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.90, for a total value of $121,516,500.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 7,895 shares in the company, valued at approximately $386,065.50. This trade represents a 99.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Large shareholders that own 10% or more of a company’s stock are required to disclose their transactions with the SEC.

Jeffrey Westphal also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Thursday, October 3rd, Jeffrey Westphal sold 1,225,000 shares of Vertex stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $39.42, for a total transaction of $48,289,500.00.

Vertex Trading Down 2.2 %

NASDAQ VERX opened at $49.45 on Friday. Vertex, Inc. has a one year low of $23.31 and a one year high of $52.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a current ratio of 1.04. The company has a market capitalization of $7.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 274.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 9.34 and a beta of 0.67. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $40.91 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $37.09.

Vertex (NASDAQ:VERX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.14 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $170.40 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $165.70 million. Vertex had a net margin of 4.73% and a return on equity of 24.92%. Vertex’s revenue was up 17.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.06 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Vertex, Inc. will post 0.38 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in VERX. Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC raised its holdings in Vertex by 13.6% in the first quarter. Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC now owns 712,926 shares of the company’s stock worth $22,643,000 after purchasing an additional 85,237 shares in the last quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Vertex during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $22,173,000. Quadrature Capital Ltd lifted its position in Vertex by 24.7% during the first quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 92,167 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,927,000 after acquiring an additional 18,258 shares during the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in Vertex by 10.0% in the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 248,001 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,940,000 after purchasing an additional 22,514 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Vertex during the second quarter worth $1,824,000. 59.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on VERX. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of Vertex from $41.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Vertex from $43.00 to $57.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on Vertex from $42.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Vertex from $42.00 to $52.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Baird R W upgraded Vertex to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Vertex presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $52.30.

About Vertex

Vertex, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides enterprise tax technology solutions for retail trade, wholesale trade, and manufacturing industries in the United States and internationally. The company offers tax determination; compliance and reporting, including workflow management tools, role-based security, and event logging; tax data management; document management; analytics and insights; pre-built integration that includes mapping data fields, and business logic and configurations; industry-specific solutions; and technology specific solutions, such as chain flow accelerator and SAP-specific tools.