StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) Sets New 52-Week High on Analyst Upgrade

StepStone Group LP (NASDAQ:STEP)’s share price reached a new 52-week high on Thursday after Oppenheimer raised their price target on the stock from $56.00 to $73.00. Oppenheimer currently has an outperform rating on the stock. StepStone Group traded as high as $61.43 and last traded at $60.97, with a volume of 33277 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $60.97.

A number of other research firms have also commented on STEP. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of StepStone Group from $52.00 to $55.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $51.50 to $57.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $52.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $44.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 21st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, StepStone Group has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $53.44.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On StepStone Group

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of STEP. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in StepStone Group by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,270,144 shares of the company’s stock worth $167,749,000 after purchasing an additional 90,974 shares during the period. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in StepStone Group by 74.3% in the first quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 50,099 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,791,000 after purchasing an additional 21,354 shares during the period. Wasatch Advisors LP grew its holdings in StepStone Group by 1.6% in the first quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP now owns 2,948,665 shares of the company’s stock worth $105,385,000 after purchasing an additional 46,860 shares during the period. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S purchased a new stake in StepStone Group in the first quarter worth about $149,000. Finally, Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in StepStone Group by 7.7% in the first quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 36,225 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,295,000 after purchasing an additional 2,587 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 55.54% of the company’s stock.

StepStone Group Stock Down 0.2 %

The stock has a market cap of $6.74 billion, a PE ratio of 67.64 and a beta of 1.28. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $55.59 and its 200 day moving average price is $46.72.

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.35 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $186.40 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $181.15 million. The firm’s revenue was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.26 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that StepStone Group LP will post 1.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

StepStone Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 13th. Investors of record on Friday, August 30th were paid a dividend of $0.24 per share. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.58%. This is a boost from StepStone Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 30th. StepStone Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 106.67%.

About StepStone Group

StepStone Group Inc is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in direct, fund of funds, secondary direct, and secondary indirect investments. For direct investment, it seeks to invest in private debt, venture debt, incubation, mezzanine, distressed/vulture, seed/startup, early venture, mid venture, late venture, emerging growth, later stage, turnaround, growth capital, industry consolidation, recapitalization, buyout investments in mature and middle market companies.