Brokerages Set Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:KTOS) Target Price at $23.50

Shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:KTOS) have received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the nine research firms that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, four have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $23.50.

KTOS has been the subject of a number of research reports. Raymond James raised shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $20.00 to $27.00 in a report on Friday, April 26th. BTIG Research started coverage on Kratos Defense & Security Solutions in a research note on Wednesday. They issued a “neutral” rating for the company. Benchmark reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $25.00 price objective on shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions in a research note on Thursday, April 25th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Kratos Defense & Security Solutions from $22.00 to $20.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Kratos Defense & Security Solutions from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, June 3rd.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Trading Down 1.7 %

KTOS opened at $19.81 on Friday. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has a twelve month low of $13.13 and a twelve month high of $22.77. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $19.97 and a 200 day simple moving average of $19.09. The company has a quick ratio of 2.47, a current ratio of 3.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 77.54 and a beta of 1.05.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (NASDAQ:KTOS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 7th. The aerospace company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.05 by $0.06. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions had a negative net margin of 0.06% and a positive return on equity of 3.43%. The business had revenue of $277.20 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $250.48 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.01 earnings per share. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions’s revenue was up 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Kratos Defense & Security Solutions will post 0.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

In other news, CFO Deanna H. Lund sold 6,000 shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.00, for a total transaction of $120,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 310,001 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,200,020. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CFO Deanna H. Lund sold 6,000 shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.00, for a total transaction of $120,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 310,001 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,200,020. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Bradley L. Boyd sold 1,720 shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.64, for a total value of $37,220.80. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 3,280 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $70,979.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 159,720 shares of company stock worth $3,391,521. Corporate insiders own 2.27% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in KTOS. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. purchased a new position in Kratos Defense & Security Solutions during the 1st quarter valued at about $46,177,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions by 14.9% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,972,406 shares of the aerospace company’s stock valued at $256,813,000 after acquiring an additional 1,807,580 shares during the last quarter. Hood River Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions by 108.7% during the 1st quarter. Hood River Capital Management LLC now owns 2,556,787 shares of the aerospace company’s stock valued at $46,994,000 after acquiring an additional 1,331,499 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its position in shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions by 56.4% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,026,556 shares of the aerospace company’s stock valued at $45,459,000 after acquiring an additional 1,091,380 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Element Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions during the 1st quarter valued at about $11,198,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.92% of the company’s stock.

About Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc operates as a technology company that addresses the defense, national security, and commercial markets. It operates through two segments, Kratos Government Solutions and Unmanned Systems. The company offers ground systems for satellites and space vehicles, including software for command and control, telemetry, and tracking and control; jet-powered unmanned aerial drone systems, hypersonic vehicles, and rocket systems; propulsion systems for drones, missiles, loitering munitions, supersonic systems, spacecraft, and launch systems; command, control, communication, computing, combat, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance; and microwave electronic products for missile, radar, missile defense, space, and satellite; counter unmanned aircraft systems, directed energy, communication and other systems, and virtual and augmented reality training systems for the warfighter.