Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFLT) Sees Significant Drop in Short Interest

Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFLT) saw a large decrease in short interest in the month of January. As of January 15th, there was short interest totalling 11,850,000 shares, a decrease of 14.6% from the December 31st total of 13,880,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 3,830,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.1 days. Currently, 4.8% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently commented on the stock. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Confluent from $31.00 to $35.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $31.00 price target on shares of Confluent in a research note on Friday, November 15th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Confluent from $23.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on Confluent from $34.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, TD Cowen increased their price target on Confluent from $27.00 to $31.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating, nineteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $32.30.

Insider Transactions at Confluent

In other Confluent news, Director Matthew Craig Miller sold 1,084,259 shares of Confluent stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.90, for a total transaction of $31,335,085.10. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 12,559 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $362,955.10. The trade was a 98.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CTO Chad Verbowski sold 13,414 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.23, for a total value of $378,677.22. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer now directly owns 483,393 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,646,184.39. The trade was a 2.70 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 4,370,589 shares of company stock valued at $127,326,348. Company insiders own 13.82% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Confluent

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CFLT. Champlain Investment Partners LLC lifted its stake in Confluent by 72.2% in the third quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 10,700,846 shares of the company’s stock worth $218,083,000 after acquiring an additional 4,486,841 shares during the period. Fiera Capital Corp bought a new position in Confluent in the third quarter worth about $21,127,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Confluent by 46.9% in the third quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 2,513,426 shares of the company’s stock worth $51,224,000 after buying an additional 802,353 shares during the period. Savant Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Confluent during the 4th quarter worth approximately $10,607,000. Finally, Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new position in shares of Confluent during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $7,646,000. Institutional investors own 78.09% of the company’s stock.

Confluent Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ:CFLT traded up $0.18 on Friday, hitting $29.68. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 3,702,469 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,388,166. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.17, a quick ratio of 4.24 and a current ratio of 4.24. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $29.67 and a 200 day simple moving average of $25.04. Confluent has a 1 year low of $17.79 and a 1 year high of $35.07.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The company reported ($0.21) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.24) by $0.03. Confluent had a negative return on equity of 34.05% and a negative net margin of 38.35%. The business had revenue of $250.20 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $243.98 million. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Confluent will post -0.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Confluent

Confluent, Inc operates a data streaming platform in the United States and internationally. The company provides platforms that allow customers to connect their applications, systems, and data layers, such as Confluent Cloud, a managed cloud-native software-as-a-service; and Confluent Platform, an enterprise-grade self-managed software.