StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) Issues Earnings Results, Misses Estimates By $0.03 EPS

StepStone Group (NASDAQ:STEP) announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday. The company reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.47 by ($0.03), Zacks reports.

StepStone Group Price Performance

Shares of STEP stock traded down $0.86 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $63.96. The company had a trading volume of 610,637 shares, compared to its average volume of 457,958. The stock has a market cap of $7.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 106.60 and a beta of 1.31. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $61.40 and its 200 day simple moving average is $58.44. StepStone Group has a 52-week low of $32.58 and a 52-week high of $70.38.

Insider Transactions at StepStone Group

In other StepStone Group news, CEO Scott W. Hart sold 22,091 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $63.24, for a total transaction of $1,397,034.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 157,909 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,986,165.16. This represents a 12.27 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Anthony Keathley sold 729 shares of StepStone Group stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.85, for a total transaction of $50,191.65. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 2,158 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,578.30. The trade was a 25.25 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 29,820 shares of company stock worth $1,908,856 over the last 90 days. 18.44% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on STEP. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of StepStone Group from $64.00 to $70.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. Evercore ISI decreased their price objective on shares of StepStone Group from $71.00 to $63.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 17th. UBS Group lifted their target price on StepStone Group from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 22nd. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on StepStone Group from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Barclays cut their price target on StepStone Group from $72.00 to $66.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $67.79.

About StepStone Group

StepStone Group Inc is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in direct, fund of funds, secondary direct, and secondary indirect investments. For direct investment, it seeks to invest in private debt, venture debt, incubation, mezzanine, distressed/vulture, seed/startup, early venture, mid venture, late venture, emerging growth, later stage, turnaround, growth capital, industry consolidation, recapitalization, buyout investments in mature and middle market companies.