Pegasystems Inc. (PEGA) To Go Ex-Dividend on January 2nd

Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, December 13th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Thursday, January 2nd will be paid a dividend of 0.03 per share by the technology company on Thursday, January 16th. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.13%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 2nd.

Pegasystems has a dividend payout ratio of 3.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Pegasystems to earn $1.86 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 6.5%.

Pegasystems Stock Performance

NASDAQ PEGA opened at $93.29 on Tuesday. Pegasystems has a twelve month low of $44.07 and a twelve month high of $97.94. The stock has a market cap of $8.00 billion, a PE ratio of 68.09 and a beta of 1.09. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $89.71 and a 200 day simple moving average of $74.35.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The technology company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.35 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $325.10 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $326.16 million. Pegasystems had a return on equity of 37.83% and a net margin of 8.29%. Pegasystems’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.14 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Pegasystems will post 1.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Barclays upped their price objective on Pegasystems from $74.00 to $82.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Rosenblatt Securities increased their price objective on Pegasystems from $90.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Wedbush boosted their target price on shares of Pegasystems from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Pegasystems from $99.00 to $123.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Pegasystems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 21st. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $89.00.

Insider Transactions at Pegasystems

In other Pegasystems news, CAO Efstathios A. Kouninis sold 299 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $96.90, for a total value of $28,973.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Leon Trefler sold 8,288 shares of Pegasystems stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.23, for a total transaction of $673,234.24. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 37,636 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,057,172.28. This represents a 18.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 25,162 shares of company stock worth $2,156,374 over the last 90 days. 50.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Pegasystems

Pegasystems Inc develops, markets, licenses, hosts, and supports enterprise software in the United States, rest of the Americas, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. The company provides Pega Infinity, a software portfolio comprising of Pega Customer Decision Hub, a real-time AI-powered decision engine to enhance customer acquisition and experiences across inbound, outbound, and paid media channels; Pega Customer Service to anticipate customer needs, connect customers to people and systems, and automate customer interactions to evolve the customer service experience, as well as to allow enterprises to deliver interactions across channels and enhance employee productivity; and Pega Platform, an intelligent automation software for increasing efficiency of clients’ processes and workflows.