Investors Buy High Volume of Call Options on Asana (NYSE:ASAN)

Asana, Inc. (NYSE:ASAN) was the target of some unusual options trading on Friday. Stock traders acquired 40,838 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 1,392% compared to the average volume of 2,737 call options.

Insider Activity

In other Asana news, insider Eleanor B. Lacey sold 9,308 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.99, for a total value of $111,602.92. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 375,310 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,499,966.90. This represents a 2.42 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, COO Anne Raimondi sold 29,807 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $11.99, for a total value of $357,385.93. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 761,088 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,125,445.12. This represents a 3.77 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 44,092 shares of company stock worth $527,668 over the last quarter. 63.97% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Asana

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Headlands Technologies LLC lifted its position in shares of Asana by 327.9% during the 2nd quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC now owns 2,897 shares of the company’s stock worth $41,000 after purchasing an additional 2,220 shares during the last quarter. KBC Group NV lifted its holdings in Asana by 52.1% during the 3rd quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 3,534 shares of the company’s stock worth $41,000 after buying an additional 1,211 shares during the last quarter. Quest Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Asana during the 3rd quarter worth about $43,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Asana in the 2nd quarter valued at about $65,000. Finally, Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Asana by 26.0% during the 2nd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 4,983 shares of the company’s stock worth $70,000 after acquiring an additional 1,028 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 26.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently commented on ASAN. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Asana from $20.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Asana from $15.00 to $13.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “underperform” rating and issued a $10.00 price target on shares of Asana in a research note on Friday. JMP Securities lifted their price target on shares of Asana from $21.00 to $25.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, KeyCorp upgraded Asana from an “underweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating and set a $10.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $15.67.

Asana Stock Up 43.4 %

ASAN stock traded up $6.71 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $22.17. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 13,861,265 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,043,800. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $13.17 and a 200-day simple moving average of $13.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.06 billion, a P/E ratio of -18.35 and a beta of 1.22. The company has a quick ratio of 1.63, a current ratio of 1.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. Asana has a 52-week low of $11.05 and a 52-week high of $22.22.

Asana (NYSE:ASAN) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, September 3rd. The company reported ($0.05) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.08) by $0.03. Asana had a negative return on equity of 81.88% and a negative net margin of 37.73%. The firm had revenue of $179.21 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $177.68 million. During the same period last year, the business posted ($0.31) earnings per share. Asana’s revenue was up 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Asana will post -1.14 EPS for the current year.

About Asana

Asana, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates a work management platform for individuals, team leads, and executives in the United States and internationally. Its platform helps organizations to orchestrate work from daily tasks to cross-functional strategic initiatives; manage work across a portfolio of projects or workflows, see progress against goals, identify bottlenecks, resource constraints, and milestones; and communicate company-wide goals, monitor status, and oversee work across projects and portfolios to gain real-time insights.