Investors Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW)

Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Traders acquired 103,951 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 44% compared to the typical daily volume of 72,032 call options.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Christian Kleinerman sold 30,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.00, for a total transaction of $3,600,000.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 721,755 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $86,610,600. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other Snowflake news, EVP Christian Kleinerman sold 30,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.00, for a total transaction of $3,600,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 721,755 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $86,610,600. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Benoit Dageville sold 287 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $111.41, for a total transaction of $31,974.67. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 53,250 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,932,582.50. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 59,538 shares of company stock worth $7,061,544. 7.80% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Snowflake

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board increased its holdings in Snowflake by 19,399.2% in the third quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board now owns 2,572,336 shares of the company’s stock valued at $295,459,000 after buying an additional 2,559,144 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB bought a new stake in shares of Snowflake in the first quarter valued at about $258,957,000. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Snowflake by 210.0% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 974,576 shares of the company’s stock worth $131,656,000 after buying an additional 660,168 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its holdings in shares of Snowflake by 471.9% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 761,697 shares of the company’s stock valued at $87,489,000 after purchasing an additional 628,511 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its stake in Snowflake by 90.3% in the second quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 1,265,367 shares of the company’s stock valued at $170,938,000 after acquiring an additional 600,469 shares during the last quarter. 65.10% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

SNOW has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Wedbush upgraded shares of Snowflake to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Bank of America lowered their target price on shares of Snowflake from $200.00 to $160.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 16th. JMP Securities lowered their price target on shares of Snowflake from $235.00 to $190.00 and set a “market outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on shares of Snowflake from $200.00 to $168.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 19th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of Snowflake from $130.00 to $125.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating and twenty-five have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $172.09.

Snowflake Price Performance

Snowflake stock traded up $5.22 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $130.68. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 11,337,772 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,486,430. The stock has a market capitalization of $43.80 billion, a P/E ratio of -43.67 and a beta of 0.83. Snowflake has a 52-week low of $107.13 and a 52-week high of $237.72. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $115.64 and its 200-day simple moving average is $128.89.

Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 21st. The company reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.02. Snowflake had a negative return on equity of 19.62% and a negative net margin of 31.73%. The firm had revenue of $868.80 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $851.72 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted ($0.52) earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Snowflake will post -2.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.