First Trust Advisors LP Has $85.76 Million Stake in Confluent, Inc. $CFLT

Key Points

• First Trust Advisors LP trimmed its Confluent stake by 4.9% to 4,331,092 shares (worth $85.76M), with institutional investors owning about 78.09% of the company.
• Confluent beat the quarter with $0.12 EPS vs. $0.10 expected and $314.8M revenue (up 20.5% YoY), but remains unprofitable with a negative net margin (~25%) and negative return on equity.
• Multiple insiders have been selling—~1.345M shares (~$40.7M) sold in the last 90 days including director sales—and analysts have a consensus Hold rating with a $28.71 price target.

First Trust Advisors LP lowered its stake in Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFLT - Free Report) by 4.9% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,331,092 shares of the company's stock after selling 224,821 shares during the quarter. First Trust Advisors LP owned 1.24% of Confluent worth $85,756,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Confluent by 10.5% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 31,347,214 shares of the company's stock worth $620,675,000 after purchasing an additional 2,970,708 shares during the period. Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its stake in Confluent by 6.7% in the second quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 11,590,026 shares of the company's stock valued at $288,939,000 after purchasing an additional 727,943 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Confluent by 1.7% during the second quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 8,592,443 shares of the company's stock valued at $214,210,000 after purchasing an additional 143,232 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Confluent by 12.5% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,235,819 shares of the company's stock valued at $130,551,000 after purchasing an additional 583,219 shares during the period. Finally, Optimus Prime Fund Management Co. Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Confluent by 17.9% during the 2nd quarter. Optimus Prime Fund Management Co. Ltd. now owns 5,070,000 shares of the company's stock worth $126,395,000 after purchasing an additional 770,000 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.09% of the company's stock.

Confluent Trading Down 0.1%

CFLT opened at $30.75 on Tuesday. Confluent, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $15.64 and a fifty-two week high of $30.81. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.00 billion, a PE ratio of -35.76 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 3.83 and a quick ratio of 3.83. The company's 50-day moving average is $30.52 and its 200 day moving average is $25.59.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 11th. The company reported $0.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.10 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $314.82 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $308.03 million. Confluent had a negative return on equity of 22.66% and a negative net margin of 25.31%.The company's quarterly revenue was up 20.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.09 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Confluent, Inc. will post -0.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently commented on the company. Piper Sandler downgraded Confluent from an "overweight" rating to a "hold" rating and set a $31.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Monday, December 8th. Evercore set a $31.00 price target on Confluent in a research note on Monday, December 8th. Truist Financial set a $31.00 price target on Confluent in a report on Monday, December 8th. Citigroup raised their price objective on Confluent from $26.00 to $31.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. Finally, William Blair lowered Confluent from an "outperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a research report on Monday, December 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, twenty-eight have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $28.71.

Insider Activity at Confluent

In other news, Director Neha Narkhede sold 80,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Friday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.59, for a total value of $2,447,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 28,549 shares in the company, valued at $873,313.91. This represents a 73.70% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Eric Vishria sold 61,905 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.57, for a total transaction of $1,892,435.85. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 663,637 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $20,287,383.09. This represents a 8.53% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 1,345,399 shares of company stock valued at $40,731,418 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 13.82% of the company's stock.

Confluent Profile

Confluent, Inc NASDAQ: CFLT is a leading provider of an event streaming platform built on Apache Kafka. The company's flagship offerings include Confluent Platform—a self-managed software solution—and Confluent Cloud, a fully managed service designed to simplify real-time data processing across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. These products enable enterprises to collect, process and distribute high volumes of data in real time, supporting use cases such as fraud detection, supply chain optimization and personalized customer experiences.

Founded in 2014 by Apache Kafka co-creators Jay Kreps, Neha Narkhede and Jun Rao, Confluent has driven the commercialization of Kafka technologies and extended the platform with tools for data integration, stream processing and enterprise-grade security.

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