Jefferies Financial Group Has Lowered Expectations for Sprout Social (NASDAQ:SPT) Stock Price

Sprout Social (NASDAQ:SPT) had its price target cut by equities researchers at Jefferies Financial Group from $15.00 to $12.00 in a report released on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a “buy” rating on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 38.25% from the company’s current price.

SPT has been the topic of a number of other reports. Canaccord Genuity Group decreased their target price on Sprout Social from $25.00 to $16.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on Sprout Social from $17.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 13th. Barclays cut their target price on shares of Sprout Social from $26.00 to $13.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 12th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of Sprout Social in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Sprout Social presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $21.91.

Sprout Social Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:SPT opened at $8.68 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $513.76 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -10.72 and a beta of 0.81. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $10.39 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.40. Sprout Social has a fifty-two week low of $8.55 and a fifty-two week high of $34.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 0.89 and a current ratio of 0.89.

Sprout Social (NASDAQ:SPT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 5th. The company reported $0.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.07. Sprout Social had a negative net margin of 10.59% and a negative return on equity of 18.93%. The company had revenue of $115.59 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $114.86 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.13 EPS. Sprout Social’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sprout Social has set its FY 2025 guidance at 0.770-0.790 EPS and its Q4 2025 guidance at 0.150-0.170 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Sprout Social will post -0.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Sprout Social news, insider Justyn Russell Howard sold 40,000 shares of Sprout Social stock in a transaction on Friday, January 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.70, for a total transaction of $428,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 7,417 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $79,361.90. The trade was a 84.36% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Aaron Edward Frederick Rankin bought 90,661 shares of Sprout Social stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $11.14 per share, for a total transaction of $1,009,963.54. Following the purchase, the director owned 114,969 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,280,754.66. This trade represents a 372.97% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 10.12% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Sprout Social

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in SPT. UBS Group AG raised its position in Sprout Social by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 406,596 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,582,000 after purchasing an additional 5,743 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Sprout Social by 4.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,822,928 shares of the company’s stock worth $76,894,000 after buying an additional 274,527 shares during the period. CWM LLC lifted its stake in shares of Sprout Social by 147.4% during the 4th quarter. CWM LLC now owns 9,183 shares of the company’s stock worth $103,000 after acquiring an additional 5,471 shares during the last quarter. Diversified Trust Co. boosted its holdings in Sprout Social by 17.1% during the 4th quarter. Diversified Trust Co. now owns 21,064 shares of the company’s stock valued at $237,000 after acquiring an additional 3,082 shares during the period. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its holdings in Sprout Social by 9.7% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 311,353 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,023,000 after acquiring an additional 27,571 shares during the period.

About Sprout Social

Sprout Social (NASDAQ: SPT) is a Chicago-based software company specializing in social media management solutions for businesses of all sizes. The company provides a cloud-based platform designed to help organizations improve their social media presence through a suite of tools for content scheduling, community engagement, social listening and analytics. Sprout Social’s platform is built to streamline the workflows of marketing, customer care and public relations teams by providing a centralized hub for managing multiple social channels.

The company’s product offerings include publishing and scheduling capabilities that allow users to plan and automate social content across networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.