Needham & Company LLC Reiterates “Buy” Rating for Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS)

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS)‘s stock had its “buy” rating restated by research analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued on Tuesday, Marketbeat reports. They currently have a $240.00 target price on the stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 16.30% from the stock’s current price.

Other equities analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of Zscaler from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Zscaler from $220.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 29th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $215.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday. Scotiabank decreased their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $210.00 to $195.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Finally, Bank of America cut shares of Zscaler from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $265.00 to $195.00 in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $224.84.

Zscaler Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:ZS opened at $206.36 on Tuesday. Zscaler has a 12 month low of $153.45 and a 12 month high of $259.61. The stock has a market cap of $31.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -834.32 and a beta of 0.82. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $191.28 and its 200 day moving average price is $185.15.

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) last announced its earnings results on Monday, December 2nd. The company reported $0.77 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.63 by $0.14. Zscaler had a negative return on equity of 0.80% and a negative net margin of 1.58%. The firm had revenue of $628.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $605.51 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned ($0.18) earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 26.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Zscaler will post -0.95 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Zscaler

In related news, CEO Jagtar Singh Chaudhry sold 2,852 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $171.28, for a total value of $488,490.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 361,432 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $61,906,072.96. This represents a 0.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Robert Schlossman sold 1,435 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.70, for a total transaction of $260,739.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 105,806 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,224,950.20. This trade represents a 1.34 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 30,502 shares of company stock worth $5,256,651. Company insiders own 18.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Zscaler by 3.9% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,625,861 shares of the company’s stock worth $277,327,000 after purchasing an additional 60,414 shares in the last quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Zscaler by 28.2% during the third quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 1,289,350 shares of the company’s stock worth $220,401,000 after buying an additional 283,540 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its holdings in shares of Zscaler by 5.3% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 496,047 shares of the company’s stock worth $95,335,000 after buying an additional 25,181 shares in the last quarter. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP increased its holdings in shares of Zscaler by 33.8% during the third quarter. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP now owns 399,516 shares of the company’s stock worth $68,293,000 after buying an additional 100,814 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Zscaler by 18.3% during the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 394,698 shares of the company’s stock worth $75,857,000 after buying an additional 61,037 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 46.45% of the company’s stock.

Zscaler Company Profile

Zscaler, Inc operates as a cloud security company worldwide. The company offers Zscaler Internet Access solution that provides users, workloads, IoT, and OT devices secure access to externally managed applications, including software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and internet destinations; and Zscaler Private Access solution, which is designed to provide access to managed applications hosted internally in data centers, and private or public clouds.