Robert W. Baird Lowers Vertex (NASDAQ:VERX) Price Target to $45.00

Vertex (NASDAQ:VERX) had its price objective lowered by Robert W. Baird from $62.00 to $45.00 in a research note issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the stock. Robert W. Baird’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 39.36% from the company’s previous close.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Vertex from $42.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Raymond James reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of Vertex in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $61.00 target price on shares of Vertex in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Citigroup raised their target price on Vertex from $46.00 to $54.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Vertex from $50.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $51.00.

Vertex Price Performance

Shares of VERX opened at $32.29 on Friday. Vertex has a 1 year low of $27.22 and a 1 year high of $60.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29, a current ratio of 1.04 and a quick ratio of 1.04. The company has a market capitalization of $5.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 179.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.66 and a beta of 0.78. The business has a 50-day moving average of $52.09 and a 200-day moving average of $46.72.

Vertex (NASDAQ:VERX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported $0.10 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.13 by ($0.03). Vertex had a return on equity of 24.92% and a net margin of 4.73%. The company had revenue of $178.46 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $176.90 million. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Vertex will post 0.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Jeffrey Westphal sold 575,000 shares of Vertex stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.01, for a total transaction of $30,480,750.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 7,895 shares in the company, valued at approximately $418,513.95. This trade represents a 98.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, major shareholder Item Second Irr. Trust Fbo Kyl sold 53,843 shares of Vertex stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.48, for a total value of $3,041,052.64. Following the sale, the insider now owns 1,229,257 shares in the company, valued at $69,428,435.36. This trade represents a 4.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 858,457 shares of company stock worth $46,160,958 over the last 90 days. 44.58% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Vertex

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of Vertex in the fourth quarter valued at $38,000. Mark Sheptoff Financial Planning LLC bought a new stake in shares of Vertex in the fourth quarter valued at $40,000. Plato Investment Management Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Vertex in the fourth quarter valued at $41,000. Armstrong Advisory Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Vertex in the fourth quarter valued at $50,000. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Vertex by 126.2% in the third quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 968 shares of the company’s stock valued at $37,000 after buying an additional 540 shares during the period. 70.32% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Vertex

Vertex, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides enterprise tax technology solutions for retail trade, wholesale trade, and manufacturing industries in the United States and internationally. The company offers tax determination; compliance and reporting, including workflow management tools, role-based security, and event logging; tax data management; document management; analytics and insights; pre-built integration that includes mapping data fields, and business logic and configurations; industry-specific solutions; and technology specific solutions, such as chain flow accelerator and SAP-specific tools.