Morgan Stanley Raises Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) Price Target to $19.00

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) had its target price raised by Morgan Stanley from $16.00 to $19.00 in a research report released on Monday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an equal weight rating on the technology company’s stock.

HPE has been the topic of several other research reports. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $20.00 to $17.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Barclays decreased their target price on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Wells Fargo & Company reissued an equal weight rating and set a $17.00 target price (down from $21.00) on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Evercore ISI decreased their target price on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $19.00 to $18.00 and set an in-line rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $17.91.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Price Performance

Shares of NYSE HPE opened at $17.04 on Monday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $16.84 and its 200-day moving average price is $16.41. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a 1-year low of $13.65 and a 1-year high of $20.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.75, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.21. The company has a current ratio of 0.89, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The technology company reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.45 by $0.03. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a net margin of 6.81% and a return on equity of 9.12%. The firm had revenue of $6.76 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.38 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 13.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.4 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 12th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.05%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s payout ratio is 35.86%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Hewlett Packard Enterprise

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in HPE. Rise Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 253.9% during the 1st quarter. Rise Advisors LLC now owns 1,465 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,051 shares during the period. Authentikos Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory LLC DE bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Salem Investment Counselors Inc. grew its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 180.1% during the 4th quarter. Salem Investment Counselors Inc. now owns 1,961 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 1,261 shares during the period. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $35,000. 80.78% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company Profile

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. It operates in six segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other.