Short Interest in Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS) Increases By 20.6%

Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest in the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,810,000 shares, a growth of 20.6% from the November 30th total of 3,990,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,800,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.7 days. Approximately 5.1% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ZS. Wedbush decreased their target price on shares of Zscaler from $260.00 to $220.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $270.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Cantor Fitzgerald raised Zscaler to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, November 18th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on Zscaler from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Bank of America downgraded Zscaler from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $265.00 to $195.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $224.84.

Zscaler Price Performance

Shares of Zscaler stock opened at $183.13 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $28.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -732.52 and a beta of 0.82. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $196.91 and a 200-day simple moving average of $187.98. Zscaler has a 52-week low of $153.45 and a 52-week high of $259.61.

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) last posted its earnings results on Monday, December 2nd. The company reported $0.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.63 by $0.14. Zscaler had a negative net margin of 1.58% and a negative return on equity of 0.75%. The firm had revenue of $628.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $605.51 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($0.18) earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 26.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Zscaler will post -0.24 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Robert Schlossman sold 1,435 shares of Zscaler stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.70, for a total transaction of $260,739.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 105,806 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,224,950.20. The trade was a 1.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Jagtar Singh Chaudhry sold 2,863 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $200.32, for a total value of $573,516.16. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 358,569 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $71,828,542.08. This trade represents a 0.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 11,683 shares of company stock valued at $2,313,619 over the last three months. Company insiders own 18.10% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Zscaler

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in ZS. Tidal Investments LLC grew its stake in Zscaler by 278.9% in the 3rd quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 34,098 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,829,000 after buying an additional 25,099 shares during the last quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB bought a new stake in Zscaler during the third quarter valued at about $38,000. Sanctuary Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Zscaler by 48.1% in the third quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 11,107 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,899,000 after purchasing an additional 3,608 shares during the last quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky increased its stake in shares of Zscaler by 103.8% in the third quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 41,026 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,013,000 after purchasing an additional 20,900 shares during the period. Finally, Coldstream Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Zscaler by 50.1% in the third quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,281 shares of the company’s stock worth $397,000 after purchasing an additional 761 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 46.45% of the company’s stock.

About Zscaler

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.