Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Snowflake Call Options (NYSE:SNOW)

Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders bought 103,951 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 44% compared to the average volume of 72,032 call options.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Snowflake from $191.00 to $146.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 19th. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $180.00 target price on shares of Snowflake in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Morgan Stanley restated an “equal weight” rating and issued a $175.00 price target on shares of Snowflake in a report on Thursday, August 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Snowflake from $130.00 to $125.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 22nd. Finally, Argus initiated coverage on shares of Snowflake in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. They issued a “hold” rating on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and twenty-five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $172.09.

Insider Transactions at Snowflake

In related news, Director Frank Slootman sold 1,606 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $109.96, for a total transaction of $176,595.76. Following the sale, the director now owns 218,246 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $23,998,330.16. This represents a 0.73 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Christian Kleinerman sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.77, for a total transaction of $1,811,550.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 706,755 shares in the company, valued at approximately $85,354,801.35. The trade was a 2.08 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 59,538 shares of company stock valued at $7,061,544. 7.80% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Snowflake

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SNOW. LRI Investments LLC grew its stake in Snowflake by 155.6% in the 2nd quarter. LRI Investments LLC now owns 184 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 112 shares during the period. Wellington Shields Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Snowflake in the 2nd quarter valued at $27,000. V Square Quantitative Management LLC acquired a new stake in Snowflake in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Fortitude Family Office LLC acquired a new stake in Snowflake in the 3rd quarter valued at $34,000. Finally, Opal Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Snowflake in the 2nd quarter valued at $39,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 65.10% of the company’s stock.

Snowflake Trading Down 1.2 %

SNOW opened at $129.19 on Friday. Snowflake has a 12-month low of $107.13 and a 12-month high of $237.72. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.30 billion, a PE ratio of -42.22 and a beta of 0.83. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $116.03 and a two-hundred day moving average of $128.90.

Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 21st. The company reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02. Snowflake had a negative net margin of 31.73% and a negative return on equity of 19.62%. The company had revenue of $868.80 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $851.72 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted ($0.52) EPS. Snowflake’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Snowflake will post -2.41 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Snowflake

Snowflake Inc provides a cloud-based data platform for various organizations in the United States and internationally. Its platform offers Data Cloud, which enables customers to consolidate data into a single source of truth to drive meaningful business insights, build data-driven applications, and share data and data products, as well as applies artificial intelligence (AI) for solving business problems.