Empire Life Investments Inc. Purchases Shares of 3,607 ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)

Empire Life Investments Inc. purchased a new stake in ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 3,607 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,824,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Truvestments Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of ServiceNow in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. DT Investment Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of ServiceNow by 77.3% in the third quarter. DT Investment Partners LLC now owns 39 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 17 shares in the last quarter. Heck Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of ServiceNow in the fourth quarter valued at about $37,000. Stonebridge Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of ServiceNow in the fourth quarter valued at about $37,000. Finally, Oakworth Capital Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of ServiceNow by 46.7% in the third quarter. Oakworth Capital Inc. now owns 44 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $39,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.18% of the company’s stock.

ServiceNow Price Performance

NOW opened at $985.67 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $1,073.31 and a 200 day simple moving average of $969.70. The firm has a market cap of $203.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 144.31, a PEG ratio of 4.76 and a beta of 0.99. ServiceNow, Inc. has a twelve month low of $637.99 and a twelve month high of $1,198.09. The company has a current ratio of 1.10, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15.

ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The information technology services provider reported $3.67 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67. ServiceNow had a net margin of 12.97% and a return on equity of 17.11%. Equities research analysts expect that ServiceNow, Inc. will post 8.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

ServiceNow declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Wednesday, January 29th that allows the company to repurchase $3.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.3% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at ServiceNow

In other ServiceNow news, insider Jacqueline P. Canney sold 94 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,016.54, for a total transaction of $95,554.76. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 3,027 shares in the company, valued at $3,077,066.58. This represents a 3.01 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Nicholas Tzitzon sold 313 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1,064.60, for a total transaction of $333,219.80. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 3,649 shares in the company, valued at $3,884,725.40. This trade represents a 7.90 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 23,257 shares of company stock worth $23,579,376 in the last ninety days. 0.25% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. KeyCorp downgraded shares of ServiceNow from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their price objective on shares of ServiceNow from $906.00 to $913.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of ServiceNow from $1,050.00 to $1,200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of ServiceNow from $950.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, Scotiabank assumed coverage on shares of ServiceNow in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. They set a “sector outperform” rating and a $1,230.00 price objective on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $1,129.72.

About ServiceNow

ServiceNow, Inc provides end to-end intelligent workflow automation platform solutions for digital businesses in the North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates the Now platform for end-to-end digital transformation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, process mining, performance analytics, and collaboration and development tools.