Merit Financial Group LLC Buys Shares of 6,137 Parsons Co. (NYSE:PSN)

Merit Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Parsons Co. (NYSE:PSN) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm acquired 6,137 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $566,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Parsons by 60.6% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,634,155 shares of the company’s stock worth $169,429,000 after buying an additional 616,707 shares during the last quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new stake in shares of Parsons in the third quarter worth $62,514,000. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its position in shares of Parsons by 61.7% in the third quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 1,123,366 shares of the company’s stock valued at $116,471,000 after acquiring an additional 428,662 shares in the last quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Parsons during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $29,302,000. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in Parsons by 18.1% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,192,943 shares of the company’s stock worth $123,685,000 after purchasing an additional 183,117 shares in the last quarter. 98.02% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Parsons from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $103.00 to $111.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Parsons from $103.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. KeyCorp cut their price target on Parsons from $122.00 to $102.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Raymond James downgraded Parsons from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, William Blair lowered shares of Parsons from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Parsons has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $108.25.

Parsons Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE PSN opened at $85.34 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $9.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 129.31, a PEG ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 0.74. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $95.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $95.99. Parsons Co. has a 12 month low of $64.33 and a 12 month high of $114.68. The company has a current ratio of 1.55, a quick ratio of 1.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47.

Parsons (NYSE:PSN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The company reported $0.80 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.73 by $0.07. Parsons had a net margin of 1.21% and a return on equity of 12.74%. The firm had revenue of $1.81 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.63 billion. As a group, analysts predict that Parsons Co. will post 3.02 earnings per share for the current year.

Parsons Profile

Parsons Corporation provides integrated solutions and services in the defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure markets in North America, the Middle East, and internationally. The company operates through Federal Solutions and Critical Infrastructure segments. The Federal Solutions segment provides critical technologies, such as cybersecurity; missile defense; intelligence; space launch and ground systems; space and weapon system resiliency; geospatial intelligence; signals intelligence; environmental remediation; border security, critical infrastructure protection; counter unmanned air systems; biometrics and bio surveillance solutions to U.S.