Principal Financial Group Inc. Invests $3.67 Million in SolarWinds Co. (NYSE:SWI)

Principal Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of SolarWinds Co. (NYSE:SWI - Free Report) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 281,427 shares of the software maker's stock, valued at approximately $3,673,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned 0.16% of SolarWinds at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in SWI. Barclays PLC boosted its position in SolarWinds by 170.1% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 94,530 shares of the software maker's stock worth $1,233,000 after purchasing an additional 59,532 shares during the period. Brandes Investment Partners LP boosted its holdings in shares of SolarWinds by 12.3% during the 2nd quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 371,636 shares of the software maker's stock worth $4,424,000 after buying an additional 40,643 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in SolarWinds by 57.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,193,026 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $28,619,000 after buying an additional 800,467 shares during the last quarter. 272 Capital LP bought a new position in SolarWinds in the 2nd quarter valued at about $5,032,000. Finally, Villanova Investment Management Co LLC lifted its position in SolarWinds by 42.8% during the third quarter. Villanova Investment Management Co LLC now owns 149,709 shares of the software maker's stock worth $1,954,000 after acquiring an additional 44,839 shares during the last quarter. 93.96% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

SWI has been the topic of several research reports. Scotiabank initiated coverage on SolarWinds in a research report on Friday, September 13th. They issued a "sector perform" rating and a $13.00 target price on the stock. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on SolarWinds from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Wedbush started coverage on SolarWinds in a report on Thursday, December 19th. They set an "outperform" rating and a $20.00 target price for the company. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, SolarWinds presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $15.00.

SolarWinds Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:SWI traded down $0.07 during trading on Friday, reaching $14.15. 304,004 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 290,352. The company has a quick ratio of 0.71, a current ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88. SolarWinds Co. has a 52 week low of $10.14 and a 52 week high of $14.94. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.41 billion, a PE ratio of 64.32 and a beta of 0.96. The company's 50 day moving average is $13.78 and its two-hundred day moving average is $12.84.

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.02. SolarWinds had a net margin of 4.93% and a return on equity of 7.96%. The firm had revenue of $200.03 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $194.03 million. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.11 EPS. The business's quarterly revenue was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that SolarWinds Co. will post 0.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other SolarWinds news, insider Jason Bliss sold 135,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.02, for a total transaction of $1,757,700.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 838,789 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,921,032.78. The trade was a 13.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna sold 200,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.68, for a total value of $2,736,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,212,171 shares of the company's stock, valued at $30,262,499.28. The trade was a 8.29 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 351,000 shares of company stock worth $4,703,780. Insiders own 1.95% of the company's stock.

SolarWinds Company Profile

SolarWinds Corporation provides information technology (IT) management software products in the United States and internationally. It provides a suite of network management software that offers real-time visibility into network utilization and bandwidth, as well as the ability to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance problems; and a suite of infrastructure management products, which monitors and analyzes the performance of applications and their supporting infrastructure, including servers, physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure, storage, and databases.