VMware (NYSE:VMW) had its price objective boosted by equities research analysts at Raymond James from $163.00 to $196.00 in a research note issued on Friday. The brokerage currently has an “outperform” rating on the virtualization software provider’s stock. Raymond James’ target price would suggest a potential upside of 9.02% from the stock’s previous close.
VMW has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Morgan Stanley lowered VMware from an “overweight” rating to an “equal” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $175.00 to $152.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 15th. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $192.00 price objective (up previously from $172.00) on shares of VMware in a report on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on VMware from $165.00 to $194.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, November 30th. Deutsche Bank lifted their price objective on VMware from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage on VMware in a report on Thursday, January 10th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $170.00 price objective on the stock. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $177.04.
Get VMware alerts:VMW traded up $7.97 during trading on Friday, reaching $179.78. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,182,789 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,432,002. VMware has a 52-week low of $113.30 and a 52-week high of $176.66. The firm has a market capitalization of $72.14 billion, a PE ratio of 46.58, a P/E/G ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 0.73. The company has a current ratio of 3.04, a quick ratio of 3.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39.
VMware (NYSE:VMW) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 28th. The virtualization software provider reported $1.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $1.88 by $0.10. VMware had a return on equity of 19.62% and a net margin of 17.03%. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.68 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that VMware will post 4.77 EPS for the current year.
In related news, CFO Zane Rowe sold 6,500 shares of VMware stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.08, for a total transaction of $1,073,020.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 89,276 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,737,682.08. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Sanjay Poonen sold 16,135 shares of VMware stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $147.88, for a total value of $2,386,043.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 124,578 shares of company stock valued at $18,885,326. Insiders own 29.90% of the company’s stock.
Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of VMware by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 106,875 shares of the virtualization software provider’s stock worth $14,674,000 after purchasing an additional 1,364 shares during the last quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV raised its position in shares of VMware by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 14,138 shares of the virtualization software provider’s stock worth $1,939,000 after purchasing an additional 187 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of VMware by 398.9% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 136,053 shares of the virtualization software provider’s stock worth $18,657,000 after purchasing an additional 108,780 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its position in shares of VMware by 32.8% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 420,084 shares of the virtualization software provider’s stock worth $57,603,000 after purchasing an additional 103,671 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cypress Capital Group raised its position in shares of VMware by 5.4% during the 4th quarter. Cypress Capital Group now owns 3,920 shares of the virtualization software provider’s stock worth $538,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 18.05% of the company’s stock.
VMware Company Profile
VMware, Inc provides compute, cloud, mobility, networking, and security infrastructure software to businesses in the United States and internationally. The company offers compute products, including VMware vSphere, a data center platform, which enables users to deploy hypervisor, a layer of software that resides between the operating system and system hardware to enable compute virtualization; storage and availability products that provide data storage and protection options; network and security products; and cloud management and automation products to manage and automate overarching IT processes involved in provisioning IT services and resources to users from initial infrastructure deployment to retirement.
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