Nokia (NYSE:NOK) Shares Gap Up Following Analyst Upgrade

Key Points

• Nokia shares gapped up to $4.40 after BNP Paribas Exane upgraded the stock from a neutral to an outperform rating, with a new price target set at $5.00.
• Large investors have recently increased their positions in Nokia, with significant new investments totaling over $2 million in the first quarter of the year.
• Nokia's latest quarterly earnings report revealed a net revenue of $5.34 billion, exceeding analyst expectations, although it reported an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.05, missing estimates by $0.02.

Shares of Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK - Get Free Report) gapped up prior to trading on Wednesday after BNP Paribas Exane upgraded the stock from a neutral rating to an outperform rating. The stock had previously closed at $4.23, but opened at $4.40. BNP Paribas Exane now has a $5.00 price target on the stock. Nokia shares last traded at $4.42, with a volume of 3,166,246 shares changing hands.

NOK has been the topic of a number of other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on Nokia from $6.50 to $6.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, July 29th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Nokia from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $5.62.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nokia

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. TCW Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Nokia during the 1st quarter worth $425,000. GSA Capital Partners LLP bought a new position in Nokia in the 1st quarter worth about $641,000. Diversify Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Nokia in the 1st quarter worth about $910,000. Penserra Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Nokia by 41.0% during the first quarter. Penserra Capital Management LLC now owns 3,707,857 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $19,540,000 after buying an additional 1,078,476 shares during the period. Finally, Centiva Capital LP purchased a new stake in shares of Nokia in the fourth quarter worth about $409,000. 5.28% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Nokia Stock Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $23.86 billion, a PE ratio of 22.18 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.21. The business's fifty day moving average price is $4.53 and its 200-day moving average price is $4.93.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The technology company reported $0.05 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.07 by ($0.02). Nokia had a return on equity of 8.36% and a net margin of 5.30%.The firm had revenue of $5.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $4.82 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.06 earnings per share. The company's quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Nokia Corporation will post 0.34 EPS for the current year.

About Nokia

Nokia Oyj provides mobile, fixed, and cloud network solutions worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Network Infrastructure, Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services, and Nokia Technologies. The company provides fixed networking solutions, such as fiber and copper-based access infrastructure, in-home Wi-Fi solutions, and cloud and virtualization services; IP networking solutions, including IP access, aggregation, and edge and core routing for residential, mobile, enterprise and cloud applications; optical networks solutions that provides optical transport networks for metro, regional, and long-haul applications, and subsea applications; and submarine networks for undersea cable transmission.

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