Morgan Stanley Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Gartner (NYSE:IT) Stock Price

Gartner (NYSE:IT) had its target price cut by Morgan Stanley from $564.00 to $555.00 in a research note released on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have an equal weight rating on the information technology services provider’s stock.

A number of other research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of Gartner from $470.00 to $460.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Gartner from $565.00 to $590.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. StockNews.com cut shares of Gartner from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Gartner from $529.00 to $531.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Barclays raised shares of Gartner from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $525.00 to $600.00 in a research report on Friday, January 10th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $550.75.

Gartner Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of IT stock opened at $516.34 on Thursday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $507.49 and its 200-day moving average price is $498.39. The company has a current ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.31. The stock has a market cap of $39.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.08, a PEG ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 1.33. Gartner has a twelve month low of $411.15 and a twelve month high of $559.00.

Gartner (NYSE:IT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The information technology services provider reported $2.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.45 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $1.48 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.48 billion. Gartner had a net margin of 17.33% and a return on equity of 118.27%. The company’s revenue was up 5.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.56 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Gartner will post 11.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Gartner

In related news, EVP Claire Herkes sold 411 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $521.24, for a total transaction of $214,229.64. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 1,494 shares in the company, valued at approximately $778,732.56. This represents a 21.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director James C. Smith sold 17,533 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $547.09, for a total transaction of $9,592,128.97. Following the sale, the director now owns 532,294 shares in the company, valued at $291,212,724.46. The trade was a 3.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 35,583 shares of company stock valued at $19,241,974. 3.60% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Gartner

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its stake in Gartner by 885.9% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 40,905 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $19,817,000 after purchasing an additional 36,756 shares during the last quarter. Dakota Wealth Management increased its stake in Gartner by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 11,776 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $5,705,000 after purchasing an additional 355 shares during the last quarter. Atomi Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in Gartner by 23.6% in the fourth quarter. Atomi Financial Group Inc. now owns 565 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $274,000 after purchasing an additional 108 shares during the last quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. increased its stake in Gartner by 101.8% in the fourth quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 8,646 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,189,000 after purchasing an additional 4,361 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ballentine Partners LLC increased its stake in Gartner by 10.8% in the fourth quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 473 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $229,000 after purchasing an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. 91.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc operates as a research and advisory company in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Research, Conferences, and Consulting. The Research segment delivers its research primarily through a subscription service that include on-demand access to published research content, data and benchmarks, and direct access to a network of research experts.