Merit Financial Group LLC Purchases 6,539 Shares of Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE)

Merit Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE - Free Report) by 67.0% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 16,302 shares of the software company's stock after purchasing an additional 6,539 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC's holdings in Adobe were worth $6,252,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. LVW Advisors LLC lifted its position in Adobe by 29.7% during the 1st quarter. LVW Advisors LLC now owns 1,214 shares of the software company's stock valued at $466,000 after acquiring an additional 278 shares during the period. Fragasso Financial Advisors Inc lifted its position in Adobe by 534.4% during the 1st quarter. Fragasso Financial Advisors Inc now owns 4,390 shares of the software company's stock valued at $1,684,000 after acquiring an additional 3,698 shares during the period. NBC Securities Inc. lifted its position in Adobe by 121,740.0% during the 1st quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 6,092 shares of the software company's stock valued at $2,336,000 after acquiring an additional 6,087 shares during the period. Douglas Lane & Associates LLC lifted its position in Adobe by 1.8% during the 1st quarter. Douglas Lane & Associates LLC now owns 3,310 shares of the software company's stock valued at $1,269,000 after acquiring an additional 58 shares during the period. Finally, Addenda Capital Inc. lifted its position in Adobe by 17.3% during the 1st quarter. Addenda Capital Inc. now owns 33,100 shares of the software company's stock valued at $12,695,000 after acquiring an additional 4,873 shares during the period. 81.79% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ADBE has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of Adobe from $600.00 to $510.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on shares of Adobe from $600.00 to $500.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Citigroup lowered their price target on shares of Adobe from $551.00 to $490.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 10th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Adobe from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated an "outperform" rating and set a $480.00 price objective on shares of Adobe in a research note on Thursday. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Adobe presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $502.88.

Insider Transactions at Adobe

In other news, CFO Daniel Durn acquired 1,300 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 20th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $390.58 per share, for a total transaction of $507,754.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 29,876 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $11,668,968.08. This trade represents a 4.55% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.16% of the company's stock.

Adobe Stock Performance

NASDAQ:ADBE traded up $1.29 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $415.20. 2,272,597 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,410,300. The company has a quick ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The stock's fifty day moving average price is $380.10 and its 200-day moving average price is $426.39. The firm has a market cap of $176.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 1.55. Adobe Inc. has a one year low of $332.01 and a one year high of $587.75.

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, March 12th. The software company reported $5.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $4.97 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $5.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $5.66 billion. Adobe had a return on equity of 45.87% and a net margin of 25.85%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $4.48 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Adobe Inc. will post 16.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Adobe

Adobe Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a diversified software company worldwide. It operates through three segments: Digital Media, Digital Experience, and Publishing and Advertising. The Digital Media segment offers products, services, and solutions that enable individuals, teams, and enterprises to create, publish, and promote content; and Document Cloud, a unified cloud-based document services platform.