Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company Could Be A Quick Boost To Your Portfolio

Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) have dropped -16.5% since the company’s Oct-18 earnings report. Over the past 11 fiscal quarters, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (NYSE:HPE) has topped consensus earnings estimates in 8 quarters (72%), missed earnings in 1 quarters (9%), whereas at 2 occasion EPS met analyst expectations. HPE last reported earnings on August 28, 2018 when it released Jul-18 results that exceeded expectations. The company raked in $0.44 per share, -97.64% change on the same period last year. That was better than consensus for $0.37. Revenue for the recent quarter stood at $7.76 billion, down -5% on last year and above the $7.68 billion predicted by analysts. For this quarter, Wall Street analysts forecast revenue in a range of $7.68 billion to $8.09 billion, which should be compared with $7.58 billion generated last year. EPS is seen in a range of $0.41 to $0.44, against the $0.35 reported a year ago.

HPE’s 50 day simple moving average (SMA 50) price is $16.29 and its 200-day simple moving average (SMA 200) price is $16.47. The company’s stock currently has a total float of 1.47B shares. Its weekly volatility is hovering around 3.29% and felt 2.49% volatility in price over a month. On the upside, the share price will test short term resistance at around $15.62. On a downside, the stock is likely to find some support, which begins at $15.05. The failure to get near-term support could push it to $14.69.

The insider holding in Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) stood at 0.1% while institutions hold 85.8%. Dodge & Cox is the largest single holder among mutual funds with ownership of over 183.67M HPE shares as of June 30, with a market value of approx. $2.68B as of today. The second largest holder, Primecap Management, with 97.33M shares which equates to $1.42B worth of the stock. At third is Hotchkis & Wiley, which stood pat with 62.33M shares, a 3.91% position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, worth $910.57M.

Separately, it has been reported that multiple insider activity took place at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE). President and CEO Neri Antonio F sold 82,893 shares for $87,828 in transaction occurred on 2018/09/21. After making this transaction, the President and CEO owns a direct stake of 1,409,181 shares, worth $1,354,308, as per the last closing price. On 2018/09/14 Stonesifer Timothy C., EVP & CFO at HPE, dumped 479,142 shares at an average price of $16.57 per share. The selling total is valued at $2,447,555.

President and CEO, Neri Antonio F had divested 36,556 shares for $170,721 through a trade on 2018/08/17. Following this activity, the insider holds 603,174 shares worth $2,632,518 as of recent close.Wall Street’s most bullish Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (NYSE:HPE) analysts are predicting the share price to blow past $23 per share during the next 12 months. The current median share price forecast by them is $19, suggesting that the stock could increase 23.22% in that time frame. The average price target of $19.23 calls for a nearly 24.71% increase in the stock price.

It had seen a negative analyst call from Bernstein, which downgraded the stock from Outperform to Mkt Perform on August 21. Analysts at Nomura, started covering the stock on June 28 with a Neutral rating. Brokerage firm Pivotal Research Group, looks cautious as they stick to prior recommendation of Hold, in a call on June 14. However, they did change the target price from $20 to $18. JP Morgan, released new analyst coverage on March 02, calling the stock is Neutral.

When looking at valuations, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) has a pricey P/E of 51.74x as compared to industry average of 17.92x. Moreover, it trades for 9.79 times the next 12 months of expected earnings. Also, it is trading at rather expensive levels at just over 1x price/book and 0.82x price/sales. Compared to others, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company is in a different league with regards to profitability, having net margins of 11.2%. To put some perspective around this, the industry’s average net margin is -8.53%. HPE’s ROE is 13.5%, which is also considerably better than the industry’s ROE of 4.15%. It’s also very liquid in the near term, with a current ratio of 1. The stock has a debt/capital of 0.52.