Pegasystems Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.02 (NASDAQ:PEGA)

Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, March 24th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 1st will be given a dividend of 0.015 per share by the technology company on Tuesday, April 15th. This represents a $0.06 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 1st.

Pegasystems has a payout ratio of 3.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Pegasystems to earn $2.16 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 5.6%.

Pegasystems Trading Up 3.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ PEGA traded up $2.68 on Monday, reaching $75.57. 510,854 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 970,078. The company has a 50 day moving average of $89.85 and a 200 day moving average of $85.57. Pegasystems has a fifty-two week low of $54.55 and a fifty-two week high of $113.67. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.49 billion, a PE ratio of 74.82 and a beta of 1.25.

Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The technology company reported $1.27 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.47 by ($0.20). Pegasystems had a return on equity of 32.09% and a net margin of 6.63%. As a group, research analysts expect that Pegasystems will post 1.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

PEGA has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Citigroup upped their price target on Pegasystems from $99.00 to $123.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $118.00 price target on shares of Pegasystems in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Pegasystems from $90.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Pegasystems from $103.00 to $97.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 14th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on Pegasystems from $95.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Pegasystems currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $99.36.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Pegasystems news, Chairman Alan Trefler sold 31,500 shares of Pegasystems stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $77.38, for a total value of $2,437,470.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now owns 17,308,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,339,353,860.68. The trade was a 0.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Leon Trefler sold 752 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.83, for a total transaction of $70,560.16. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 37,973 shares in the company, valued at $3,563,006.59. This represents a 1.94 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 81,543 shares of company stock worth $6,253,614 in the last three months. 50.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Pegasystems

Pegasystems Inc develops, markets, licenses, hosts, and supports enterprise software in the United States, rest of the Americas, the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. The company provides Pega Infinity, a software portfolio comprising of Pega Customer Decision Hub, a real-time AI-powered decision engine to enhance customer acquisition and experiences across inbound, outbound, and paid media channels; Pega Customer Service to anticipate customer needs, connect customers to people and systems, and automate customer interactions to evolve the customer service experience, as well as to allow enterprises to deliver interactions across channels and enhance employee productivity; and Pega Platform, an intelligent automation software for increasing efficiency of clients’ processes and workflows.