Wall Street Zen Upgrades Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART) to "Buy"

Key Points

• Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART) has been upgraded from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating by Wall Street Zen, signaling increased confidence in the stock's performance.
• Several analysts have raised their price targets for Maplebear, with Barclays setting it at $65.00, while Wells Fargo and Needham also issued positive updates, contributing to a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy."
• Maplebear reported an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.41 in its last quarterly results, outperforming analyst expectations and showing a year-over-year revenue increase of 11.1% to $914 million.

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART - Free Report) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report released on Saturday morning.

A number of other research firms have also recently issued reports on CART. Macquarie reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $55.00 target price on shares of Maplebear in a report on Tuesday, May 6th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Maplebear from $47.00 to $55.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of Maplebear from $55.00 to $64.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their target price on shares of Maplebear from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Monday, July 21st. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on shares of Maplebear from $48.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 27th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $55.33.

Maplebear Price Performance

Shares of CART stock traded down $0.83 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $50.94. The company had a trading volume of 3,251,978 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,244,692. The company has a 50 day moving average of $46.81 and a 200 day moving average of $44.72. The firm has a market cap of $13.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.45, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.21. Maplebear has a 1-year low of $31.51 and a 1-year high of $53.50.

Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported $0.41 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.39 by $0.02. Maplebear had a net margin of 13.76% and a return on equity of 15.69%. The business had revenue of $914.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $896.55 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.20 EPS. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Maplebear will post 1.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Levien Meredith A. Kopit sold 4,225 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $47.45, for a total transaction of $200,476.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 20,829 shares of the company's stock, valued at $988,336.05. This represents a 16.86% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Daniel Danker sold 10,037 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.82, for a total transaction of $490,006.34. Following the sale, the insider owned 470,190 shares in the company, valued at $22,954,675.80. The trade was a 2.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 4,975,327 shares of company stock worth $237,736,848 in the last ninety days. 26.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Maplebear

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CART. William Blair Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in Maplebear in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $151,364,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its position in Maplebear by 62.8% in the first quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 7,368,232 shares of the company's stock worth $293,919,000 after acquiring an additional 2,841,559 shares in the last quarter. Altimeter Capital Management LP purchased a new position in Maplebear in the fourth quarter worth $105,108,000. Boston Partners grew its position in Maplebear by 93.3% in the second quarter. Boston Partners now owns 3,961,838 shares of the company's stock worth $179,261,000 after acquiring an additional 1,911,771 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. grew its position in Maplebear by 85.0% in the fourth quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 3,081,847 shares of the company's stock worth $127,650,000 after acquiring an additional 1,416,426 shares in the last quarter. 63.09% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Maplebear

Maplebear Inc, doing business as Instacart, engages in the provision of online grocery shopping services to households in North America. It sells and delivers grocery products, as well as pickup services through a mobile application and website. It also operates virtual convenience stores; and provides software-as-a-service solutions to retailers.