SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) Shares Gap Up - Still a Buy?

Shares of SolarWinds Co. (NYSE:SWI - Get Free Report) 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 traded.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently commented on SWI shares. Wedbush assumed coverage on SolarWinds in a research report on Thursday. They issued an "outperform" rating and a $20.00 target price for the company. Scotiabank assumed coverage on SolarWinds in a report on Friday, September 13th. They set a "sector perform" rating and a $13.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their target price on SolarWinds from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, SolarWinds currently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $15.00.

SolarWinds Stock Up 2.8 %

The company has a market cap of $2.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 64.91 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 0.71 and a quick ratio of 0.71. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $13.45 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $12.64.

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.02. SolarWinds had a return on equity of 7.96% and a net margin of 4.93%. The business had revenue of $200.03 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $194.03 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.11 EPS. The business's revenue was up 5.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that SolarWinds Co. will post 0.74 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other SolarWinds news, Director William G. Bock sold 16,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $13.13, for a total value of $210,080.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 88,857 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,166,692.41. The trade was a 15.26 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna sold 200,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.68, for a total value of $2,736,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,212,171 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $30,262,499.28. This represents a 8.29 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 351,000 shares of company stock valued at $4,703,780. Corporate insiders own 1.95% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Brandes Investment Partners LP raised its stake in SolarWinds by 12.3% in the 2nd quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 371,636 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $4,424,000 after acquiring an additional 40,643 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of SolarWinds in the third quarter valued at approximately $3,673,000. 272 Capital LP purchased a new stake in shares of SolarWinds during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $5,032,000. Villanova Investment Management Co LLC boosted its holdings in SolarWinds by 42.8% in the 3rd quarter. Villanova Investment Management Co LLC now owns 149,709 shares of the software maker's stock worth $1,954,000 after buying an additional 44,839 shares during the period. Finally, Harvey Partners LLC purchased a new position in SolarWinds in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,958,000. 93.96% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About SolarWinds

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.