Morgan Stanley Increases Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) Price Target to $21.00

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) had its price target lifted by Morgan Stanley from $19.00 to $21.00 in a report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “equal weight” rating on the technology company’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 7.20% from the company’s previous close.

HPE has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Evercore ISI lowered their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $19.00 to $18.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 1st. Bank of America boosted their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $19.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. StockNews.com cut Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, April 27th. Barclays lowered their price target on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 1st. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $20.25.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Stock Performance

NYSE:HPE opened at $19.59 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $17.63 and a 200-day moving average price of $16.77. The company has a market cap of $25.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.30, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.89. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a fifty-two week low of $14.47 and a fifty-two week high of $20.43.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, June 4th. The technology company reported $0.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.39 by $0.03. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a return on equity of 8.55% and a net margin of 6.38%. The firm had revenue of $7.20 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.82 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.32 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 3.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.4 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Jeremy Cox sold 18,323 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $16.96, for a total value of $310,758.08. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 15,541 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $263,575.36. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 3.7% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,853,093 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,869,655,000 after buying an additional 5,777,901 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 17,733,959 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $301,151,000 after purchasing an additional 695,038 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 4.2% during the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 15,879,051 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $275,819,000 after purchasing an additional 634,727 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp boosted its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 6.6% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 14,831,872 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $257,630,000 after purchasing an additional 913,014 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 6.5% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 14,518,564 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $252,187,000 after purchasing an additional 880,271 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.78% of the company’s stock.

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.