Principal Financial Group Inc. Buys Shares of 281,427 SolarWinds Co. (NYSE:SWI)

Principal Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of SolarWinds Co. (NYSE:SWI) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 281,427 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $3,673,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.17% of SolarWinds at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in SolarWinds by 8.7% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 5,776,309 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $69,603,000 after acquiring an additional 461,061 shares during the last quarter. Scalar Gauge Management LLC increased its position in shares of SolarWinds by 11.3% during the 2nd quarter. Scalar Gauge Management LLC now owns 834,060 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $10,050,000 after purchasing an additional 85,000 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in SolarWinds by 48.5% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 825,829 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $9,869,000 after buying an additional 269,578 shares during the period. Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its position in SolarWinds by 0.4% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 560,015 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $6,748,000 after buying an additional 2,491 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Foundry Partners LLC boosted its stake in SolarWinds by 5.3% during the second quarter. Foundry Partners LLC now owns 510,206 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $6,148,000 after buying an additional 25,685 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.96% of the company’s stock.

SolarWinds Stock Performance

Shares of SWI stock opened at $13.05 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $12.96 and a two-hundred day moving average of $12.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.23 billion, a PE ratio of 59.32 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 0.71, a current ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88. SolarWinds Co. has a 52 week low of $10.14 and a 52 week high of $14.02.

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $200.03 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $194.03 million. SolarWinds had a return on equity of 7.96% and a net margin of 4.93%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.11 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that SolarWinds Co. will post 0.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director William G. Bock sold 16,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.13, for a total value of $210,080.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 88,857 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,166,692.41. The trade was a 15.26 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna sold 200,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.68, for a total transaction of $2,736,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,212,171 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $30,262,499.28. This represents a 8.29 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 351,000 shares of company stock worth $4,703,780. 1.95% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on SWI. Scotiabank initiated coverage on shares of SolarWinds in a research note on Friday, September 13th. They issued a “sector perform” rating and a $13.00 price target on the stock. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on SolarWinds from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $14.00.

About SolarWinds

SolarWinds Corporation provides information technology (IT) management software products in the United States and internationally. It provides a suite of network management software that offers real-time visibility into network utilization and bandwidth, as well as the ability to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance problems; and a suite of infrastructure management products, which monitors and analyzes the performance of applications and their supporting infrastructure, including servers, physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure, storage, and databases.