Needham & Company LLC Reiterates “Hold” Rating for Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR)

Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR)‘s stock had its “hold” rating reaffirmed by equities researchers at Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Loop Capital reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $113.00 target price on shares of Altair Engineering in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Altair Engineering from $90.00 to $113.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. William Blair restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Altair Engineering in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on Altair Engineering from $88.00 to $113.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Wolfe Research lowered Altair Engineering from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Sunday, November 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $100.71.

Altair Engineering Stock Performance

Altair Engineering stock traded up $0.18 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $111.96. The stock had a trading volume of 361,027 shares, compared to its average volume of 777,520. The company has a 50-day moving average of $109.80 and a two-hundred day moving average of $101.19. The company has a quick ratio of 3.27, a current ratio of 3.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The company has a market cap of $9.53 billion, a PE ratio of 294.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 10.70 and a beta of 1.42. Altair Engineering has a fifty-two week low of $75.71 and a fifty-two week high of $113.12.

Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The software reported $0.36 EPS 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 5.10% and a return on equity of 7.49%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Altair Engineering will post 0.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Altair Engineering

In other news, CFO Matthew Charles Brown sold 1,048 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $108.90, for a total value of $114,127.20. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 55,519 shares in the company, valued at $6,046,019.10. This trade represents a 1.85 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO James Ralph Scapa sold 13,000 shares of Altair Engineering stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.69, for a total value of $1,373,970.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 134,045 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,167,216.05. This represents a 8.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 59,143 shares of company stock worth $6,265,694. Insiders own 21.75% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Altair Engineering

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 317,575 shares in the last quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Altair Engineering by 1.4% during the third quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,522,551 shares of the software’s stock worth $240,929,000 after acquiring an additional 33,985 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings 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 in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Altair Engineering by 3.9% during the third 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in Altair Engineering by 9.2% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 751,191 shares of the software’s stock worth $81,962,000 after acquiring an additional 63,368 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 63.38% of the company’s stock.

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.