CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) Rating Increased to Hold at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report published on Tuesday morning.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on the company. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on CoStar Group from $78.00 to $75.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of CoStar Group from $97.00 to $90.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered shares of CoStar Group from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $96.00 to $83.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $100.00 target price on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Monday. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $93.08.

CoStar Group Price Performance

NASDAQ:CSGP opened at $70.36 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $28.84 billion, a PE ratio of 159.91 and a beta of 0.85. CoStar Group has a 1-year low of $68.26 and a 1-year high of $100.38. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $75.16 and a 200 day simple moving average of $75.48. The company has a current ratio of 9.63, a quick ratio of 9.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The technology company reported $0.22 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $692.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $695.91 million. CoStar Group had a net margin of 6.57% and a return on equity of 3.53%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.25 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that CoStar Group will post 0.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other CoStar Group news, Director Michael R. Klein sold 71,633 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.69, for a total transaction of $5,350,268.77. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 1,913,501 shares in the company, valued at $142,919,389.69. The trade was a 3.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Michael J. Desmarais sold 5,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.88, for a total value of $439,340.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 58,798 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,696,784.24. The trade was a 8.55 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 1.57% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On CoStar Group

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CSGP. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC bought a new position in CoStar Group in the third quarter valued at about $40,000. Quarry LP bought a new stake in shares of CoStar Group during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $54,000. Brooklyn Investment Group acquired a new position in CoStar Group during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $91,000. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. bought a new position in CoStar Group in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $104,000. Finally, Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. boosted its position in CoStar Group by 55.1% in the third quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 1,374 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $104,000 after buying an additional 488 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 96.60% of the company’s stock.

About CoStar Group

CoStar Group, Inc provides information, analytics, and online marketplace services to the commercial real estate, hospitality, residential, and related professionals industries in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The company offers CoStar Property that provides inventory of office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, and student housing properties and land; CoStar Sales, a robust database of comparable commercial real estate sales transactions; CoStar Market Analytics to view and report on aggregated market and submarket trends; and CoStar Tenant, an online business-to-business prospecting and analytical tool that provides tenant information.