Morgan Stanley Reaffirms Equal Weight Rating for Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT)

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT)‘s stock had its “equal weight” rating reissued by Morgan Stanley in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. They presently have a $30.00 price objective on the stock, down from their prior price objective of $33.00. Morgan Stanley’s price target suggests a potential upside of 12.36% from the stock’s current price.

Several other brokerages have also issued reports on CFLT. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $40.00 price objective on shares of Confluent in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of Confluent from $34.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Confluent from $23.00 to $26.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. DA Davidson reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $30.00 price objective on shares of Confluent in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Confluent from $35.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating, nineteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $32.37.

Confluent Stock Performance

Shares of CFLT stock opened at $26.70 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $8.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -24.05 and a beta of 0.91. The company’s 50 day moving average is $29.62 and its 200 day moving average is $24.98. The company has a quick ratio of 4.24, a current ratio of 4.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.17. Confluent has a 52-week low of $17.79 and a 52-week high of $35.07.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The company reported ($0.21) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.24) by $0.03. The company had revenue of $250.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $243.98 million. Confluent had a negative net margin of 38.35% and a negative return on equity of 34.05%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Confluent will post -0.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Confluent

In other news, Director Michelangelo Volpi sold 50,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $25.92, for a total transaction of $1,296,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 280,200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,262,784. The trade was a 15.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Erica Schultz sold 63,729 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $27.40, for a total transaction of $1,746,174.60. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 687,483 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $18,837,034.20. This represents a 8.48 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 4,584,712 shares of company stock valued at $132,928,936. Corporate insiders own 13.82% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Confluent

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of CFLT. Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Confluent by 72.2% during the third quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 10,700,846 shares of the company’s stock worth $218,083,000 after purchasing an additional 4,486,841 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. boosted its position in Confluent by 28.4% during the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 7,617,100 shares of the company’s stock worth $224,933,000 after acquiring an additional 1,684,100 shares during the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp acquired a new position in Confluent during the third quarter worth about $21,127,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. boosted its position in Confluent by 46.9% during the third quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 2,513,426 shares of the company’s stock worth $51,224,000 after acquiring an additional 802,353 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas acquired a new position in Confluent during the third quarter worth about $7,646,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 78.09% of the company’s stock.

Confluent Company Profile

Confluent, Inc operates a data streaming platform in the United States and internationally. The company provides platforms that allow customers to connect their applications, systems, and data layers, such as Confluent Cloud, a managed cloud-native software-as-a-service; and Confluent Platform, an enterprise-grade self-managed software.