Principal Financial Group Inc. Raises Stock Holdings in ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS)

Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of ePlus inc. (NASDAQ:PLUS) by 3.3% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 137,452 shares of the software maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,425 shares during the quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned 0.51% of ePlus worth $10,155,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. HighTower Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in ePlus in the third quarter worth approximately $227,000. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in ePlus by 16.8% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 731,909 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $71,987,000 after buying an additional 105,526 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC boosted its stake in ePlus by 82.3% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 80,328 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $7,899,000 after buying an additional 36,267 shares in the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC boosted its stake in ePlus by 62.7% in the third quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 36,915 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,630,000 after buying an additional 14,227 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Argent Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in ePlus by 38.1% in the fourth quarter. Argent Capital Management LLC now owns 20,166 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,490,000 after buying an additional 5,564 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 93.80% of the company’s stock.

ePlus Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of PLUS opened at $64.38 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 1.83 and a quick ratio of 1.69. ePlus inc. has a 1 year low of $63.42 and a 1 year high of $106.98. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $74.28 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $84.81. The firm has a market cap of $1.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.42, a P/E/G ratio of 1.83 and a beta of 1.10.

ePlus (NASDAQ:PLUS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The software maker reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.28 by ($0.37). ePlus had a net margin of 4.93% and a return on equity of 11.23%. On average, analysts forecast that ePlus inc. will post 3.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, StockNews.com lowered ePlus from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 22nd.

ePlus Profile

ePlus inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) solutions that enable organizations to optimize their IT environment and supply chain processes in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Technology and Financing. The Technology segment offers hardware, perpetual and subscription software, maintenance, software assurance, and internally provided and outsourced services; managed services or infrastructure and cloud; and enhanced maintenance support, service desk, storage-as-a-service, cloud hosted and managed, and managed security services; and professional, staff augmentation, cloud consulting, consulting, and security services.