Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW)

Key Points

• Traders purchased **122,765 call options** for Snowflake Inc., marking an increase of **153%** compared to the average daily volume of 48,481 options.
• Insider transactions revealed significant sales, with Director **Michael L. Speiser** selling over **50,000 shares**, reducing his stake by **57.12%**, and Director **Frank Slootman** selling over **424,000 shares**, lowering his ownership by **71.97%**.
• Following a recent rise of **18.4%** in share price to **$237.29**, analysts have raised their price targets for Snowflake, with Piper Sandler increasing their target from **$215 to $285** and Morgan Stanley setting a target of **$272**.

Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW - Get Free Report) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Thursday. Traders bought 122,765 call options on the company. Thisrepresentsanincreaseof153% compared to the average daily volume of 48,481 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Michael L. Speiser sold 50,338 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $211.35, for a total transaction of $10,638,936.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 37,796 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,988,184.60. This represents a 57.12% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Frank Slootman sold 424,852 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $219.35, for a total value of $93,191,286.20. Following the transaction, the director owned 165,507 shares of the company's stock, valued at $36,303,960.45. This represents a 71.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 2,516,826 shares of company stock valued at $555,691,052 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 6.80% of the company's stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Snowflake

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Snowflake by 2.2% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 27,789,761 shares of the company's stock worth $6,218,515,000 after purchasing an additional 595,553 shares in the last quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC bought a new position in Snowflake in the second quarter worth about $3,900,134,000. Jennison Associates LLC raised its holdings in Snowflake by 20.5% in the second quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 8,000,667 shares of the company's stock worth $1,790,309,000 after purchasing an additional 1,363,389 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Snowflake by 1.4% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,887,073 shares of the company's stock worth $1,541,120,000 after purchasing an additional 94,293 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Artisan Partners Limited Partnership raised its holdings in Snowflake by 15.2% in the second quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership now owns 4,951,715 shares of the company's stock worth $1,108,045,000 after purchasing an additional 652,485 shares in the last quarter. 65.10% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Snowflake Stock Up 18.4%

Shares of SNOW stock traded up $36.90 on Thursday, hitting $237.29. The stock had a trading volume of 16,435,555 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,119,995. The company has a quick ratio of 1.58, a current ratio of 1.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $210.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $185.15. The company has a market cap of $79.22 billion, a PE ratio of -56.47 and a beta of 1.22. Snowflake has a one year low of $107.13 and a one year high of $240.53.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently commented on SNOW shares. Piper Sandler increased their target price on Snowflake from $215.00 to $285.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday. Morgan Stanley set a $272.00 target price on Snowflake and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday. Barclays restated an "overweight" rating on shares of Snowflake in a research report on Thursday. Citigroup restated an "outperform" rating on shares of Snowflake in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Hsbc Global Res downgraded Snowflake from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have issued a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $246.11.

About Snowflake

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.

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