Westpac Banking Corp Boosts Position in Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)

Key Points

• Westpac Banking Corp increased its stake in Snowflake Inc. by 177.0% during the 1st quarter, owning a total of 11,719 shares valued at approximately $1.7 million.
• The company's quarterly earnings exceeded expectations, reporting $1.04 billion in revenue and an EPS of $0.24, surpassing the consensus estimate of $0.22.
• Significant insider selling occurred, with executives and directors offloading over 3 million shares valued at approximately $657 million in the past 90 days.

Westpac Banking Corp lifted its position in Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW - Free Report) by 177.0% during the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 11,719 shares of the company's stock after acquiring an additional 7,489 shares during the period. Westpac Banking Corp's holdings in Snowflake were worth $1,713,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its position in Snowflake by 22.2% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 3,587,114 shares of the company's stock worth $524,293,000 after buying an additional 650,775 shares in the last quarter. CenterBook Partners LP purchased a new position in Snowflake during the first quarter worth approximately $2,381,000. Lyell Wealth Management LP lifted its position in Snowflake by 5.1% during the first quarter. Lyell Wealth Management LP now owns 60,685 shares of the company's stock worth $8,870,000 after buying an additional 2,955 shares in the last quarter. ORG Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in Snowflake during the first quarter worth approximately $898,000. Finally, SBI Securities Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Snowflake by 9.4% during the first quarter. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. now owns 60,591 shares of the company's stock worth $8,856,000 after buying an additional 5,197 shares in the last quarter. 65.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Snowflake Stock Performance

NYSE:SNOW traded down $1.85 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $195.02. 2,785,481 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,005,035. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $212.74 and a 200-day simple moving average of $184.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $65.11 billion, a P/E ratio of -46.32 and a beta of 1.22. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. Snowflake Inc. has a 1 year low of $107.13 and a 1 year high of $229.27.

Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 21st. The company reported $0.24 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.22 by $0.02. Snowflake had a negative return on equity of 37.75% and a negative net margin of 36.43%. The company had revenue of $1.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.01 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.14 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 25.8% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that Snowflake Inc. will post -2.36 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

SNOW has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Snowflake from $220.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, June 9th. Sanford C. Bernstein restated a "market perform" rating on shares of Snowflake in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Bank of America lifted their target price on Snowflake from $172.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Piper Sandler restated an "overweight" rating and issued a $215.00 target price (up previously from $175.00) on shares of Snowflake in a research report on Wednesday, May 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on Snowflake in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. They issued an "overweight" rating and a $262.00 target price on the stock. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, thirty-three have assigned a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $226.32.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Frank Slootman sold 256,046 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $227.15, for a total value of $58,160,848.90. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 165,507 shares of the company's stock, valued at $37,594,915.05. This trade represents a 60.74% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Christian Kleinerman sold 10,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $216.00, for a total value of $2,160,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 537,336 shares of the company's stock, valued at $116,064,576. This represents a 1.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 3,014,642 shares of company stock valued at $657,325,186 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 6.80% of the company's stock.

Snowflake Company Profile

Snowflake Inc provides a cloud-based data platform for various organizations in the United States and internationally. Its platform offers Data Cloud, which enables customers to consolidate data into a single source of truth to drive meaningful business insights, build data-driven applications, and share data and data products, as well as applies artificial intelligence (AI) for solving business problems.