Investors Buy Large Volume of Kyndryl Put Options (NYSE:KD)

Key Points

• Traders bought an unusually large volume of puts on Kyndryl — 11,111 put options, a 359% jump above the average daily put volume of 2,420, signaling elevated bearish bets or hedging activity.
• Kyndryl recently missed earnings and revenue (EPS $0.52 vs. $0.60 expected; revenue $3.86B vs. $3.89B expected), and MarketBeat shows a consensus rating of "Reduce" with a $23.83 target.
• Despite the options activity, institutions own 71.53% of the stock, with firms like Royal Bank of Canada, UBS, and First Trust notably increasing their stakes recently.

Kyndryl Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:KD - Get Free Report) saw unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Traders bought 11,111 put options on the stock. This is an increase of 359% compared to the average daily volume of 2,420 put options.

Institutional Trading of Kyndryl

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of KD. Royal Bank of Canada lifted its stake in shares of Kyndryl by 50.2% during the 1st quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 148,178 shares of the company's stock valued at $4,653,000 after buying an additional 49,504 shares in the last quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC lifted its stake in shares of Kyndryl by 15.8% during the 1st quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC now owns 8,025 shares of the company's stock valued at $252,000 after buying an additional 1,093 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its stake in shares of Kyndryl by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 733,068 shares of the company's stock valued at $23,018,000 after buying an additional 11,177 shares in the last quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. lifted its stake in shares of Kyndryl by 116.9% during the 2nd quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 2,616 shares of the company's stock valued at $110,000 after buying an additional 1,410 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Kyndryl by 29.8% during the 2nd quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 408,123 shares of the company's stock valued at $17,125,000 after buying an additional 93,726 shares in the last quarter. 71.53% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Kyndryl Stock Performance

KD traded up $0.04 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $14.44. The company had a trading volume of 1,152,297 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,906,968. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 0.86 and a current ratio of 0.86. The stock has a market cap of $3.25 billion, a PE ratio of 13.73 and a beta of 1.83. Kyndryl has a 12-month low of $10.10 and a 12-month high of $44.20. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $12.65 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $21.60.

Kyndryl (NYSE:KD - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Monday, February 9th. The company reported $0.52 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.60 by ($0.08). The company had revenue of $3.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $3.89 billion. Kyndryl had a net margin of 1.65% and a return on equity of 25.91%. The firm's revenue was up .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.51 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Kyndryl will post 0.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently commented on KD. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Kyndryl from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Sunday, February 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Kyndryl from an "overweight" rating to an "underweight" rating and set a $16.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Monday, February 9th. Oppenheimer reissued a "market perform" rating on shares of Kyndryl in a research report on Monday, February 9th. Scotiabank started coverage on shares of Kyndryl in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. They set an "outperform" rating for the company. Finally, Zacks Research cut shares of Kyndryl from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a report on Wednesday, February 18th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Kyndryl has a consensus rating of "Reduce" and a consensus target price of $23.83.

About Kyndryl

Kyndryl NYSE: KD is a global managed infrastructure services provider formed in November 2021 through the spin-off of IBM's Managed Infrastructure Services business. The company designs, builds, manages and modernizes critical information technology systems for enterprises worldwide. Kyndryl's core offerings include cloud migration and management, network and edge computing solutions, digital workplace services and IT resiliency and security capabilities.

With a workforce of approximately 90,000 professionals and operations in more than 60 countries, Kyndryl serves clients across a broad range of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing and retail.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.