Wedbush Issues Positive Forecast for Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) Stock Price

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) had its target price upped by equities researchers at Wedbush from $230.00 to $240.00 in a report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the stock. Wedbush’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 22.17% from the company’s current price.

A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on ZS. KeyCorp upped their target price on shares of Zscaler from $245.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. JMP Securities restated a “market outperform” rating and set a $240.00 target price (down from $270.00) on shares of Zscaler in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Zscaler from $215.00 to $205.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Scotiabank restated a “sector outperform” rating on shares of Zscaler in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, BTIG Research upped their price target on Zscaler from $205.00 to $238.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 27th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $231.16.

Zscaler Stock Up 1.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ ZS opened at $196.45 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $195.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $191.54. The company has a market cap of $30.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -785.80 and a beta of 0.89. Zscaler has a 12-month low of $153.45 and a 12-month high of $217.84.

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, December 2nd. The company reported $0.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 business had revenue of $628.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $605.51 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.18) EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 26.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Zscaler will post -0.1 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Jagtar Singh Chaudhry sold 2,863 shares of Zscaler stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $200.32, for a total transaction of $573,516.16. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 358,569 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $71,828,542.08. This trade represents a 0.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Remo Canessa sold 3,703 shares of Zscaler stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $200.32, for a total value of $741,784.96. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 220,635 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $44,197,603.20. This represents a 1.65 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 10,248 shares of company stock valued at $2,052,879. 18.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Zscaler

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of ZS. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Zscaler by 120.1% during the fourth quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 964,031 shares of the company’s stock worth $173,921,000 after buying an additional 525,956 shares in the last quarter. Natixis bought a new position in shares of Zscaler in the fourth quarter worth $87,775,000. Greenvale Capital LLP bought a new position in shares of Zscaler in the fourth quarter worth $72,164,000. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA increased its position in shares of Zscaler by 25.8% in the fourth quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 1,618,176 shares of the company’s stock worth $291,935,000 after purchasing an additional 332,307 shares during the period. Finally, Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Zscaler by 28.2% in the third quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 1,289,350 shares of the company’s stock worth $220,401,000 after purchasing an additional 283,540 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.