SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) Shares Gap Up – Should You Buy?

Shares of SolarWinds Co. (NYSE:SWI) gapped up before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $13.89, but opened at $14.61. SolarWinds shares last traded at $14.30, with a volume of 45,879 shares.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on SWI. Scotiabank initiated coverage on SolarWinds in a research note on Friday, September 13th. They issued a “sector perform” rating and a $13.00 target price for the company. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of SolarWinds from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Wedbush started coverage on shares of SolarWinds in a research report on Thursday. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $20.00 target price on the stock. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, SolarWinds has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $15.00.

SolarWinds Stock Performance

The stock’s 50-day moving average is $13.45 and its 200-day moving average is $12.64. The company has a current ratio of 0.71, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88. The stock has a market cap of $2.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 65.68 and a beta of 0.96.

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.02. SolarWinds had a net margin of 4.93% and a return on equity of 7.96%. The business had revenue of $200.03 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $194.03 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.11 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that SolarWinds Co. will post 0.74 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at SolarWinds

In other news, insider Jason Bliss sold 135,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.02, for a total transaction of $1,757,700.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 838,789 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,921,032.78. The trade was a 13.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director William G. Bock sold 16,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.13, for a total transaction of $210,080.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 88,857 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,166,692.41. This trade represents a 15.26 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 351,000 shares of company stock valued at $4,703,780 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 1.95% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of SolarWinds

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC grew its stake in SolarWinds by 24.6% during the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 5,071 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $66,000 after purchasing an additional 1,001 shares in the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP grew its position in shares of SolarWinds by 2.5% during the third quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 48,198 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $629,000 after buying an additional 1,184 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in shares of SolarWinds by 344.7% in the third quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,068 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 1,603 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its holdings in SolarWinds by 6.2% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 29,995 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $386,000 after acquiring an additional 1,760 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise boosted its stake in SolarWinds by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise now owns 156,382 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,884,000 after acquiring an additional 1,793 shares during the last quarter. 93.96% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

SolarWinds Company Profile

SolarWinds Corporation provides information technology (IT) management software products in the United States and internationally. It provides a suite of network management software that offers real-time visibility into network utilization and bandwidth, as well as the ability to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance problems; and a suite of infrastructure management products, which monitors and analyzes the performance of applications and their supporting infrastructure, including servers, physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure, storage, and databases.