Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFLT) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Analysts

Shares of Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFLT) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the thirty-three ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, twenty-eight have issued a hold recommendation, three have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $28.7097.

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Confluent from $25.00 to $27.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. William Blair downgraded shares of Confluent from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 8th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Confluent from $26.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on shares of Confluent from $21.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 28th. Finally, Truist Financial set a $31.00 price target on Confluent in a report on Monday, December 8th.

Key Headlines Impacting Confluent

Here are the key news stories impacting Confluent this week:

• Positive Sentiment: IBM acquisition mention: coverage reiterated IBM’s strategic buy of Confluent (cited at ~$11B), which supports a takeover-premium narrative and longer-term exit/value realization for shareholders. IBM/Confluent acquisition release
• Positive Sentiment: Asset-manager endorsement: Jackson Peak Capital named Confluent a top Q4 contributor, signaling continued institutional interest and demand among some active managers. Jackson Peak Capital article
• Positive Sentiment: Partner/product momentum: a Yahoo piece highlighted Confluent’s “Sell With Confluent” partner program and positioning to capture the large data‑streaming market, reinforcing growth narrative and TAM expansion. Sell With Confluent article
• Negative Sentiment: Large insider selling by CEO Edward Kreps: sold 270,207 shares (~$8.3M) and reduced his holding ~47%, a high-profile transaction that often weighs on sentiment and price. SEC filing: CEO Form 4
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple other executive sales: CFO Rohan Sivaram (21,503 sh), CRO Ban Ryan Norris Mac (combined ~31,273 sh across filings), and CAO Kong Phan (2,277 sh) trimmed positions — collective insider liquidity events can trigger short-term selling pressure. SEC filings: CFO CFO Form 4; CRO CRO Form 4; CAO CAO Form 4

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Confluent news, Director Eric Vishria sold 61,905 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.57, for a total value of $1,892,435.85. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 663,637 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,287,383.09. This trade represents a 8.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Edward Jay Kreps sold 506,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.04, for a total value of $15,200,240.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 339,367 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,194,584.68. This represents a 59.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 1,539,830 shares of company stock valued at $46,231,391 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 13.82% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Confluent

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CFLT. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Confluent by 133.0% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 942,303 shares of the company’s stock worth $22,088,000 after acquiring an additional 537,874 shares during the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP bought a new position in Confluent in the 1st quarter worth $332,000. AlphaQuest LLC raised its holdings in Confluent by 21.7% in the 2nd quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 4,636 shares of the company’s stock worth $116,000 after purchasing an additional 826 shares during the period. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D lifted its position in Confluent by 2.7% during the second quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D now owns 90,063 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,245,000 after purchasing an additional 2,406 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wealthfront Advisers LLC bought a new stake in Confluent during the second quarter valued at about $374,000. 78.09% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Confluent Stock Performance

Shares of CFLT opened at $30.63 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $10.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -35.62 and a beta of 0.95. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $30.39 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $24.73. Confluent has a 12 month low of $15.64 and a 12 month high of $33.00. The company has a current ratio of 3.83, a quick ratio of 3.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 11th. The company reported $0.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.10 by $0.02. Confluent had a negative return on equity of 22.66% and a negative net margin of 25.31%.The firm had revenue of $314.82 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $308.03 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.09 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 20.5% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts anticipate that Confluent will post -0.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Confluent Company Profile

Confluent, Inc (NASDAQ: CFLT) is a leading provider of an event streaming platform built on Apache Kafka. The company’s flagship offerings include Confluent Platform—a self-managed software solution—and Confluent Cloud, a fully managed service designed to simplify real-time data processing across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. These products enable enterprises to collect, process and distribute high volumes of data in real time, supporting use cases such as fraud detection, supply chain optimization and personalized customer experiences.

Founded in 2014 by Apache Kafka co-creators Jay Kreps, Neha Narkhede and Jun Rao, Confluent has driven the commercialization of Kafka technologies and extended the platform with tools for data integration, stream processing and enterprise-grade security.