Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) Reaches New 1-Year High – Should You Buy?

Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR)’s share price reached a new 52-week high on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $113.12 and last traded at $110.25, with a volume of 1173095 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $102.00.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ALTR. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $100.00 price target on shares of Altair Engineering in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Altair Engineering from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $95.00 target price for the company. in a report on Monday, July 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered shares of Altair Engineering from a “neutral” rating to a “sell” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $85.00 to $71.00 in a report on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $90.00 target price on shares of Altair Engineering in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $90.67.

Altair Engineering Stock Performance

The firm’s 50 day moving average is $92.85 and its two-hundred day moving average is $90.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 3.14 and a current ratio of 3.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.22 billion, a PE ratio of 1,232.33, a P/E/G ratio of 12.15 and a beta of 1.45.

Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The software reported $0.16 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.15 by $0.01. Altair Engineering had a net margin of 4.26% and a return on equity of 6.89%. The firm had revenue of $148.80 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $146.88 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned ($0.15) EPS. Altair Engineering’s quarterly revenue was up 5.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Altair Engineering Inc. will post 0.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Altair Engineering news, major shareholder Jrs Investments Llc sold 6,500 shares of Altair Engineering stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.59, for a total transaction of $666,835.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, major shareholder Jrs Investments Llc sold 6,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.59, for a total value of $666,835.00. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, major shareholder Christ Revocable Trust sold 50,048 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $95.07, for a total transaction of $4,758,063.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 149,952 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,255,936.64. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 360,360 shares of company stock valued at $35,476,660. Insiders own 21.75% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ALTR. Matrix Capital Management Company LP lifted its position in shares of Altair Engineering by 1.6% in the first quarter. Matrix Capital Management Company LP now owns 12,430,000 shares of the software’s stock worth $1,070,844,000 after purchasing an additional 196,826 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Altair Engineering by 3.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,944,285 shares of the software’s stock valued at $512,100,000 after purchasing an additional 182,840 shares during the period. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Altair Engineering by 1.4% during the third quarter. Conestoga Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,522,551 shares of the software’s stock valued at $240,929,000 after purchasing an additional 33,985 shares during the period. William Blair Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Altair Engineering in the second quarter valued at approximately $91,589,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its position in Altair Engineering by 121.7% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 569,109 shares of the software’s stock valued at $55,818,000 after acquiring an additional 312,448 shares in the last quarter. 63.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Altair Engineering Company Profile

Altair Engineering Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of simulation and design, high-performance computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence in the United States and internationally. It operates in two segments, Software and Client Engineering Services.