Piper Sandler Reaffirms “Neutral” Rating for Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS)

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating reissued by equities researchers at Piper Sandler in a research report issued on Friday, MarketBeat reports. They presently have a $260.00 price objective on the stock. Piper Sandler’s price target would indicate a potential downside of 4.46% from the company’s current price.

A number of other analysts also recently issued reports on ZS. BNP Paribas raised shares of Zscaler from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $260.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, April 28th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $235.00 to $270.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 16th. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $244.00 price objective on shares of Zscaler in a report on Thursday, March 6th. Cantor Fitzgerald increased their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $250.00 to $275.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $190.00 to $210.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, March 6th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.00.

Zscaler Stock Up 8.4%

Shares of ZS traded up $21.04 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $272.15. 2,250,584 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,060,655. Zscaler has a 1-year low of $153.45 and a 1-year high of $273.55. The company has a market capitalization of $42.11 billion, a PE ratio of -1,088.88 and a beta of 1.14. The business has a 50 day moving average of $219.46 and a 200 day moving average of $205.90.

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 29th. The company reported $0.84 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.76 by $0.08. Zscaler had a negative net margin of 1.58% and a negative return on equity of 0.75%. The firm had revenue of $678.03 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $667.13 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.88 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Zscaler will post -0.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, major shareholder Ajay Mangal sold 190,480 shares of Zscaler stock in a transaction on Monday, March 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $200.69, for a total transaction of $38,227,431.20. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 2,580,210 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $517,822,344.90. This trade represents a 6.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Jagtar Singh Chaudhry sold 2,155 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $199.15, for a total transaction of $429,168.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 356,414 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $70,979,848.10. This represents a 0.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 241,771 shares of company stock worth $50,165,040. Company insiders own 18.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. LaFleur & Godfrey LLC increased its stake in shares of Zscaler by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. LaFleur & Godfrey LLC now owns 61,985 shares of the company’s stock valued at $11,183,000 after buying an additional 399 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. increased its stake in shares of Zscaler by 31.7% in the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,051 shares of the company’s stock valued at $351,000 after buying an additional 494 shares in the last quarter. R Squared Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Zscaler in the fourth quarter valued at $38,000. Swedbank AB increased its stake in shares of Zscaler by 12.6% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 12,797 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,309,000 after buying an additional 1,434 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Crews Bank & Trust acquired a new stake in Zscaler in the fourth quarter worth about $36,000. 46.45% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Zscaler Company Profile

Zscaler, Inc operates as a cloud security company worldwide. The company offers Zscaler Internet Access solution that provides users, workloads, IoT, and OT devices secure access to externally managed applications, including software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and internet destinations; and Zscaler Private Access solution, which is designed to provide access to managed applications hosted internally in data centers, and private or public clouds.