Appian Co. (NASDAQ:APPN) Short Interest Up 16.3% in August

Appian Co. (NASDAQ:APPN) saw a large growth in short interest during the month of August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 3,490,000 shares, a growth of 16.3% from the August 15th total of 3,000,000 shares. Approximately 9.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 681,200 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 5.1 days.

Appian Stock Up 1.7 %

APPN traded up $0.56 on Monday, reaching $33.43. 82,613 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 560,820. Appian has a 52-week low of $26.28 and a 52-week high of $47.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.68, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 1.24. The company has a market cap of $2.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -22.36 and a beta of 1.56. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $32.21 and its 200-day moving average price is $33.10.

Appian (NASDAQ:APPN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported ($0.26) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.31) by $0.05. Appian had a negative net margin of 18.80% and a negative return on equity of 532.05%. The business had revenue of $146.50 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $142.87 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($0.55) EPS. Appian’s revenue was up 14.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Appian will post -1.07 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Appian news, major shareholder Abdiel Capital Advisors, Lp bought 21,769 shares of Appian stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 11th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $31.20 per share, for a total transaction of $679,192.80. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider now owns 10,070,799 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $314,208,928.80. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Insiders have acquired 2,366,348 shares of company stock worth $75,988,287 in the last ninety days. 44.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Appian

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Neo Ivy Capital Management acquired a new stake in Appian in the second quarter valued at approximately $65,000. Concord Wealth Partners bought a new position in shares of Appian during the 1st quarter valued at $85,000. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired a new stake in shares of Appian in the 2nd quarter valued at $96,000. nVerses Capital LLC bought a new stake in Appian in the second quarter worth $105,000. Finally, Point72 Hong Kong Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Appian during the 2nd quarter worth about $121,000. Institutional investors own 52.70% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. DA Davidson cut Appian from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. William Blair downgraded shares of Appian from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their price objective on shares of Appian from $47.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Barclays cut their target price on shares of Appian from $32.00 to $29.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Finally, KeyCorp cut Appian from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $39.20.

Appian Company Profile

Appian Corporation, a software company that provides low-code design platform in the United States, Mexico, Portugal, and internationally. The company's platform offers artificial intelligence, process automation, data fabric, and process mining. It provides The Appian Platform, an integrated automation platform that enables organizations to design, automate, and optimize mission-critical business processes.