Zacks Investment Research Downgrades Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO) to Hold

Zacks Investment Research lowered shares of Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Wednesday, Zacks.com reports.

According to Zacks, “Criteo SA is a global technology company that specializes in performance display advertising. The Company offers clients a range of solutions such as click per cost, online banner displays, user optimization, data security, and search management tools to control campaign costs. It serves companies in the online retail, classifieds, and travel segments. Criteo SA is headquartered in Paris, France. “

CRTO has been the topic of several other reports. Macquarie started coverage on shares of Tullow Oil in a research report on Wednesday, May 1st. They set a neutral rating on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a hold rating and issued a $23.00 price target on shares of Criteo in a report on Friday, May 3rd. ValuEngine cut shares of W&T Offshore from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Friday, April 26th. BMO Capital Markets reissued a hold rating and set a $45.00 price target on shares of SAP in a research report on Wednesday, May 1st. Finally, SunTrust Banks boosted their price objective on shares of HubSpot to $205.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 8th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Criteo has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $28.53.

NASDAQ:CRTO opened at $17.79 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $18.22. The stock has a market cap of $1.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.85, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 0.91. Criteo has a 52-week low of $16.46 and a 52-week high of $36.66.

Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 30th. The information services provider reported $0.34 EPS for the quarter, topping the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $0.21 by $0.13. Criteo had a return on equity of 10.75% and a net margin of 3.83%. The company had revenue of $235.69 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $234.24 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.60 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 2.0% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Criteo will post 1.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

In other Criteo news, COO Mary Spilman sold 1,567 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $17.05, for a total value of $26,717.35. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. 4.01% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRTO. California Public Employees Retirement System grew its position in Criteo by 11.2% during the fourth quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 121,163 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,753,000 after acquiring an additional 12,173 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund acquired a new stake in Criteo in the fourth quarter worth approximately $1,125,000. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in shares of Criteo by 500.8% during the 4th quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 49,137 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $1,117,000 after acquiring an additional 40,959 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates lifted its position in shares of Criteo by 12.2% during the 4th quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 88,877 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $2,019,000 after acquiring an additional 9,665 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Criteo by 73.6% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 21,403 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $486,000 after purchasing an additional 9,075 shares in the last quarter. 83.34% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Criteo Company Profile

Criteo SA, a technology company, provides an advertising platform for the open Internet in France and internationally. The company’s Criteo Shopper Graph, which collects clients’ proprietary commerce data, such as transaction activity on their digital properties. Its Criteo AI Engine solutions include Lookalike finder algorithms; recommendation algorithms; predictive bidding algorithms; bidding engine that executes campaigns based on certain objectives set by its clients; dynamic creative optimization+, which assembles customized creative advertising content by optimizing each individual creative component in the advertisement; software systems and processes, which enable data synchronization, storage, and analysis of distributed computing infrastructure in various geographies; and experimentation platform, an offline/online platform to enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of prediction models.