Needham & Company LLC Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW)

Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by investment analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $280.00 price objective on the stock. Needham & Company LLC’s target price indicates a potential upside of 22.05% from the company’s current price.

Other equities research analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Snowflake in a research note on Friday, November 21st. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on Snowflake from $220.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 28th. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price target on Snowflake from $275.00 to $278.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their price objective on Snowflake from $191.00 to $221.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 28th. Finally, Mizuho upped their price objective on Snowflake from $260.00 to $285.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 17th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have given a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Snowflake currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $275.05.

Snowflake Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:SNOW opened at $229.42 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.48, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96. The stock has a market cap of $77.73 billion, a PE ratio of -56.79 and a beta of 1.09. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $251.34 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $226.24. Snowflake has a 1-year low of $120.10 and a 1-year high of $280.67.

Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 3rd. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31 by $0.04. Snowflake had a negative net margin of 30.76% and a negative return on equity of 43.84%. The company had revenue of $1.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.18 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.20 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 28.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Snowflake will post -2.36 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Snowflake

In other news, EVP Christian Kleinerman sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $223.88, for a total value of $2,238,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 532,450 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $119,204,906. This trade represents a 1.84% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Frank Slootman sold 7,551 shares of Snowflake stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $221.24, for a total value of $1,670,583.24. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 153,226 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,899,720.24. This trade represents a 4.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 170,564 shares of company stock valued at $41,676,989 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 6.80% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in SNOW. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Snowflake by 3.1% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 28,647,593 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,461,465,000 after buying an additional 857,832 shares during the period. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC purchased a new position in Snowflake during the second quarter valued at approximately $3,900,134,000. Jennison Associates LLC grew its stake in Snowflake by 13.5% during the third quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 9,083,889 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,048,871,000 after acquiring an additional 1,083,222 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Snowflake by 1.4% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,887,073 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,541,120,000 after acquiring an additional 94,293 shares during the period. Finally, Artisan Partners Limited Partnership lifted its stake in Snowflake by 15.2% in the 2nd quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership now owns 4,951,715 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,108,045,000 after purchasing an additional 652,485 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 65.10% of the company’s stock.

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.