Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) Given Buy Rating at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reiterated their buy rating on shares of Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $100.00 price objective on the software’s stock.

ALTR has been the subject of several other reports. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a neutral rating and set a $88.00 target price on shares of Altair Engineering in a report on Monday, April 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Altair Engineering from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and set a $95.00 target price for the company. in a report on Monday, July 15th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group downgraded Altair Engineering from a neutral rating to a sell rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $85.00 to $71.00 in a research note on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $90.67.

Altair Engineering Trading Down 1.5 %

Shares of ALTR stock opened at $81.56 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $93.11 and a 200 day simple moving average of $88.18. Altair Engineering has a fifty-two week low of $57.59 and a fifty-two week high of $101.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 906.22, a P/E/G ratio of 10.73 and a beta of 1.48. The company has a quick ratio of 2.46, a current ratio of 2.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30.

Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The software reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.15 by $0.01. Altair Engineering had a return on equity of 7.11% and a net margin of 4.26%. The business had revenue of $148.80 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $146.88 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted ($0.15) earnings per share. Altair Engineering’s revenue was up 5.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Altair Engineering will post 0.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Teresa A. Harris sold 620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.95, for a total transaction of $53,289.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 21,242 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,825,749.90. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, CEO James Ralph Scapa sold 5,560 shares of Altair Engineering stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.37, for a total transaction of $469,097.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 134,045 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,309,376.65. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Teresa A. Harris sold 620 shares of Altair Engineering stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.95, for a total value of $53,289.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 21,242 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,825,749.90. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 486,134 shares of company stock valued at $45,062,853. Corporate insiders own 21.75% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Matrix Capital Management Company LP raised its stake in shares of Altair Engineering by 1.6% in the 1st quarter. Matrix Capital Management Company LP now owns 12,430,000 shares of the software’s stock valued at $1,070,844,000 after acquiring an additional 196,826 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Altair Engineering by 3.2% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,944,285 shares of the software’s stock valued at $512,100,000 after acquiring an additional 182,840 shares in the last quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Altair Engineering by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,488,566 shares of the software’s stock valued at $244,079,000 after acquiring an additional 48,485 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Altair Engineering by 97.3% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,182,339 shares of the software’s stock valued at $99,494,000 after acquiring an additional 583,127 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bain Capital Public Equity Management II LLC bought a new position in shares of Altair Engineering in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $57,728,000. 63.38% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.