Baker Avenue Asset Management LP Lowers Holdings in Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX)

Key Points

• Baker Avenue Asset Management LP reduced its stake in Flex Ltd. by 6.8%, ending the quarter with 204,685 shares valued at approximately $6.77 million.
• Several analysts have upgraded Flex, including Wall Street Zen, which changed its rating from "buy" to "strong-buy", while Stifel Nicolaus raised its price target from $45 to $52.
• Flex reported earnings per share (EPS) of $0.72 for the last quarter, exceeding estimates, and achieved revenue of $6.58 billion, a 4.1% year-over-year increase.

Baker Avenue Asset Management LP cut its stake in shares of Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX - Free Report) by 6.8% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 204,685 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 15,008 shares during the period. Baker Avenue Asset Management LP owned about 0.05% of Flex worth $6,771,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of FLEX. Brighton Jones LLC bought a new stake in Flex during the fourth quarter valued at about $260,000. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its holdings in Flex by 112.9% during the fourth quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 960 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $38,000 after acquiring an additional 509 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL raised its holdings in Flex by 4.5% during the fourth quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 13,568 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $521,000 after acquiring an additional 589 shares during the period. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA raised its holdings in Flex by 9.2% during the fourth quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 57,220 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $2,197,000 after acquiring an additional 4,832 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Flex by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,598,271 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $176,607,000 after acquiring an additional 132,457 shares during the period. 94.30% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Flex

In other Flex news, insider Michael P. Hartung sold 6,887 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.01, for a total transaction of $309,983.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 303,718 shares in the company, valued at $13,670,347.18. The trade was a 2.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP David Scott Offer sold 6,887 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.01, for a total value of $309,983.87. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 148,643 shares of the company's stock, valued at $6,690,421.43. This trade represents a 4.43% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 1,061,348 shares of company stock valued at $45,038,292 over the last ninety days. 0.57% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on FLEX. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on Flex from $45.00 to $52.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Wall Street Zen raised Flex from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Saturday, July 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Flex in a report on Friday, July 11th. KGI Securities cut Flex from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday, July 25th. Finally, KeyCorp lifted their target price on Flex from $50.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $53.71.

Flex Trading Up 2.3%

NASDAQ FLEX traded up $1.15 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $50.67. 1,095,340 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,142,432. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $47.95 and a 200 day moving average price of $40.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. Flex Ltd. has a 52 week low of $25.11 and a 52 week high of $53.97. The stock has a market cap of $19.02 billion, a PE ratio of 22.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.69 and a beta of 1.05.

Flex (NASDAQ:FLEX - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The technology company reported $0.72 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.63 by $0.09. Flex had a return on equity of 20.25% and a net margin of 3.42%. The company had revenue of $6.58 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $6.27 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.51 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 4.1% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Flex Ltd. will post 2.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Flex Profile

Flex Ltd. provides technology, supply chain, and manufacturing solutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. It operates through three segments: Flex Agility Solutions (FAS), Flex Reliability Solutions (FRS), and Nextracker. The FAS segment offers flexible supply and manufacturing system comprising communications, enterprise and cloud solution, which includes data, edge, and communications infrastructure; lifestyle solution including appliances, consumer packaging, floorcare, micro mobility, and audio; and consumer devices, such as mobile and high velocity consumer devices.