Citigroup Has Lowered Expectations for CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) Stock Price

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) had its price objective reduced by investment analysts at Citigroup from $88.00 to $86.00 in a report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a “buy” rating on the technology company’s stock. Citigroup’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 10.04% from the stock’s previous close.

CSGP has been the topic of several other research reports. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price target on shares of CoStar Group from $78.00 to $75.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of CoStar Group from $99.00 to $87.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 price target on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Monday, December 16th. Needham & Company LLC lowered their price target on shares of CoStar Group from $100.00 to $87.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Stephens reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $103.00 price target on shares of CoStar Group in a report on Tuesday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, CoStar Group currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $88.00.

CoStar Group Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:CSGP traded down $1.06 during trading on Thursday, reaching $78.16. The stock had a trading volume of 2,264,213 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,679,905. CoStar Group has a 52 week low of $68.26 and a 52 week high of $100.38. The firm has a market capitalization of $32.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 223.08 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a quick ratio of 9.63, a current ratio of 9.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $73.82 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $75.37.

CoStar Group (NASDAQ:CSGP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The technology company reported $0.22 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.22. CoStar Group had a net margin of 5.07% and a return on equity of 3.13%. The company had revenue of $709.40 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $703.00 million. As a group, analysts anticipate that CoStar Group will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CoStar Group declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Tuesday, February 18th that allows the company to buyback $500.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization allows the technology company to reacquire up to 1.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Michael J. Desmarais sold 5,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.88, for a total transaction of $439,340.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 58,798 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,696,784.24. The trade was a 8.55 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 1.57% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of CoStar Group

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CSGP. Hopwood Financial Services Inc. bought a new stake in CoStar Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $25,000. ORG Partners LLC boosted its holdings in CoStar Group by 534.8% in the fourth quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 419 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $30,000 after acquiring an additional 353 shares during the last quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in CoStar Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. bought a new stake in CoStar Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of CoStar Group by 414.4% during the 4th quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC now owns 499 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 402 shares in the last quarter. 96.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

CoStar Group Company Profile

CoStar Group, Inc provides information, analytics, and online marketplace services to the commercial real estate, hospitality, residential, and related professionals industries in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The company offers CoStar Property that provides inventory of office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, and student housing properties and land; CoStar Sales, a robust database of comparable commercial real estate sales transactions; CoStar Market Analytics to view and report on aggregated market and submarket trends; and CoStar Tenant, an online business-to-business prospecting and analytical tool that provides tenant information.