Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) Rating Increased to Buy at Goldman Sachs Group

Posted by Don Miller on Dec 4th, 2019

Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) was upgraded by stock analysts at Goldman Sachs Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a report released on Monday, MarketBeat reports. The brokerage currently has a $180.00 price target on the software company’s stock, up from their previous price target of $147.00. Goldman Sachs Group’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 21.55% from the company’s current price.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on SPLK. Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $160.00 price target on shares of Splunk in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Splunk from an “equal” rating to a “weight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $140.00 to $169.00 in a report on Monday, November 18th. Wells Fargo & Co lifted their target price on shares of Splunk from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $155.00 target price on shares of Splunk in a report on Thursday, August 22nd. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on shares of Splunk from $142.00 to $150.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and twenty-eight have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $156.50.

SPLK stock opened at $148.09 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 3.06, a quick ratio of 3.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30. Splunk has a 12-month low of $90.08 and a 12-month high of $152.68. The stock has a market cap of $22.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -93.14 and a beta of 2.10. The business’s 50-day moving average is $126.30 and its 200 day moving average is $124.09.

Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The software company reported $0.58 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $626.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $605.20 million. Splunk had a negative return on equity of 11.72% and a negative net margin of 14.24%. The business’s revenue was up 30.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.38 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Splunk will post -0.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

In related news, CEO Douglas Merritt sold 13,341 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $115.20, for a total transaction of $1,536,883.20. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Timothy Tully sold 4,391 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $115.21, for a total transaction of $505,887.11. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 38,037 shares of company stock valued at $4,843,136 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.34% of the company’s stock.

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in SPLK. FDx Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Splunk by 5.4% during the 2nd quarter. FDx Advisors Inc. now owns 1,860 shares of the software company’s stock worth $234,000 after acquiring an additional 95 shares in the last quarter. Zeke Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in Splunk by 5.4% in the 3rd quarter. Zeke Capital Advisors LLC now owns 5,247 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $618,000 after acquiring an additional 269 shares in the last quarter. National Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Splunk by 49.1% in the 2nd quarter. National Asset Management Inc. now owns 4,530 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $571,000 after acquiring an additional 1,491 shares in the last quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Splunk by 6.6% in the 2nd quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. now owns 918,710 shares of the software company’s stock valued at $115,527,000 after acquiring an additional 57,243 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased its stake in Splunk by 10.6% during the second quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 563,905 shares of the software company’s stock worth $70,910,000 after purchasing an additional 54,212 shares during the period. 93.49% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Splunk

Splunk, Inc engages in the development and marketing of software solutions. Its products include Splunk cloud, Splunk light, and Splunk enterprise. It also offers solutions for information technology operations, security, internet-of-things, application analytics, business analytics, and industries. The company was founded by Erik M.