Altair Engineering's Financial Performance and Market Position
- Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) surpasses Zacks Consensus Estimate with third-quarter earnings per share of $0.24.
- The stock price of ALTR reflects a decrease, currently at $108.63, amidst market volatility.
- Despite a downgrade by William Blair, Altair's strong financial health and growth potential may continue to attract investors.
Altair Engineering (NASDAQ:ALTR) is a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of product development, high-performance computing, and data analytics. The company competes with other tech firms like ANSYS and Dassault Systèmes. On October 30, 2024, William Blair downgraded ALTR from "Buy" to "Market Perform," with the stock priced at $108.63.
Despite the downgrade, Altair Engineering has shown strong financial performance. The company reported third-quarter earnings per share of $0.24, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.16. This is a significant improvement from the $0.14 per share reported in the same quarter last year, indicating robust financial health and growth.
The stock price of ALTR is currently $108.63, reflecting a decrease of 1.84% or $2.04. Today, the stock has fluctuated between $107.87 and $110.60. Over the past year, ALTR has seen a high of $113.12 and a low of $57.59, showing considerable volatility in its stock price.
Altair Engineering's market capitalization stands at approximately $9.22 billion, indicating its substantial size in the tech industry. The trading volume for ALTR today is 860,457 shares, suggesting active investor interest. Despite the recent downgrade, the company's strong earnings performance may continue to attract investors.
| Symbol | Price | %chg |
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| 4338.HK | 1600 | 0 |
| MSFT.NE | 31.9 | 0 |
| 377300.KS | 26700 | 0 |
| MSFT | 436.6 | 0 |
JPMorgan Bullish on Altair Stock
JPMorgan started its coverage of Altair (NASDAQ:ALTR) with an Overweight rating and a price target of $86 per share, as indicated in a recent client note on Friday. The firm's positive stance is based on Altair's robust free cash flow and its growth potential.
The analysts highlighted Altair's strong position in the stable and growing field of simulation and analysis. They project a significant growth in free cash flow (FCF) for the company, anticipating an increase of around 20% in the coming years. This growth is expected to be fueled by higher-than-average revenue increases, driven by Altair's expanding market share in simulation and analysis, leveraging its unique capabilities in high-performance computing (HPC) and data analytics/artificial intelligence.
Additionally, JPMorgan pointed out Altair's notably high operating leverage. While the firm anticipates a contraction in ALTR's market multiple as margins align more closely with those of its peers, the overall outlook remains positive. JPMorgan forecasts an attractive potential upside of approximately 15% for Altair, positioning it for relative outperformance in the market.
Altair Engineering Acquires World Programming
Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) made an announcement on Wednesday, according to which it has acquired the UK-based World Programming (WP).
The acquisition will significantly expand the company’s portfolio in the data analytics space and provide material cross-selling opportunity for the Altair Knowledge Works suite of products.
Analysts at Berenberg Bank believe that SAS-heavy legacy workloads are being slowly transitioned into other programming languages (such as R and Python) and WP’s World Programming System (WPS) software is a big enabler of the migration to the modern and hybrid data environments. The acquisition is material and the analysts believe it has potential to be accretive to Altair’s growth and margin profile.
