Traders Purchase Large Volume of Put Options on Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA)

Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKTA) saw unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Stock investors acquired 16,957 put options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 52% compared to the average daily volume of 11,146 put options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on OKTA. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Okta from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $90.00 to $125.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 16th. Stephens raised shares of Okta from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $97.00 to $120.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Okta from $95.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their price target on shares of Okta from $97.00 to $108.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, January 5th. Finally, Truist Financial dropped their price target on Okta from $125.00 to $115.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 17th. Twenty-five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $112.06.

Insider Activity

In other Okta news, insider Larissa Schwartz sold 1,836 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $83.47, for a total transaction of $153,250.92. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 36,328 shares in the company, valued at $3,032,298.16. This represents a 4.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Eric Robert Kelleher sold 2,409 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.40, for a total value of $203,319.60. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 11,266 shares in the company, valued at approximately $950,850.40. This represents a 17.62% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 37,245 shares of company stock worth $3,385,624. Insiders own 5.68% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Okta

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of OKTA. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Okta by 5.7% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,803,227 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,815,956,000 after buying an additional 1,074,977 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Okta by 28.2% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 6,030,090 shares of the company’s stock worth $521,422,000 after acquiring an additional 1,326,051 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in shares of Okta by 4.0% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 4,635,572 shares of the company’s stock valued at $425,082,000 after purchasing an additional 179,919 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Okta by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,261,303 shares of the company’s stock valued at $281,246,000 after purchasing an additional 57,605 shares during the period. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in shares of Okta by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 2,495,389 shares of the company’s stock valued at $215,776,000 after purchasing an additional 69,653 shares in the last quarter. 86.64% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Okta Stock Up 2.3%

Shares of NASDAQ:OKTA opened at $71.14 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $12.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 65.27, a P/E/G ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 0.77. Okta has a 12-month low of $68.77 and a 12-month high of $127.57. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $87.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $88.20.

Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, December 2nd. The company reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.76 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $742.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $730.23 million. Okta had a return on equity of 3.77% and a net margin of 6.87%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.67 earnings per share. Okta has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.430-3.440 EPS and its Q4 2026 guidance at 0.840-0.850 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Okta will post 0.42 EPS for the current year.

Okta declared that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Monday, January 5th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire up to 6.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Okta Company Profile

Okta, Inc is a publicly traded provider of identity and access management solutions, headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2009 by Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest, the company completed its initial public offering in April 2017. Under the leadership of McKinnon as chief executive officer and Kerrest as chief operating officer, Okta has grown into a leading vendor in the cybersecurity space, focusing on secure user authentication, single sign-on and lifecycle management for digital identities.

At the core of Okta’s offering is the Okta Identity Cloud, a suite of cloud-native services that enable organizations to manage user access across web and mobile applications, on-premises systems and APIs.