Nutanix (NASDAQ:NTNX) Rating Lowered to “Buy” at Wall Street Zen

Nutanix (NASDAQ:NTNX) was downgraded by Wall Street Zen from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a note issued to investors on Thursday.

A number of other research firms also recently commented on NTNX. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $90.00 price objective (up from $75.00) on shares of Nutanix in a report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Nutanix from $75.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Nutanix from $83.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of Nutanix from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Northland Securities raised shares of Nutanix from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $77.00 to $97.00 in a report on Thursday, February 27th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $88.23.

Nutanix Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NTNX opened at $79.76 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $69.89 and a 200-day moving average of $68.57. The company has a market capitalization of $21.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -227.89, a PEG ratio of 11.80 and a beta of 0.70. Nutanix has a 52 week low of $43.35 and a 52 week high of $83.36.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Rajiv Ramaswami sold 61,057 shares of Nutanix stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.00, for a total transaction of $4,823,503.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 497,309 shares in the company, valued at $39,287,411. The trade was a 10.93% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director Groen Max Pieter De sold 5,500,000 shares of Nutanix stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.51, for a total transaction of $409,805,000.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 11,354,032 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $845,988,924.32. This represents a 32.63% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 5,575,797 shares of company stock valued at $415,742,123. Insiders own 6.80% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Nutanix

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTNX. Merit Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Nutanix in the fourth quarter valued at about $399,000. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. acquired a new position in Nutanix during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $2,238,000. Perpetual Ltd acquired a new position in Nutanix during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $520,000. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Nutanix by 321.6% during the fourth quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 57,883 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,541,000 after purchasing an additional 44,155 shares during the period. Finally, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC grew its holdings in Nutanix by 5.0% during the fourth quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 36,206 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,215,000 after purchasing an additional 1,723 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.25% of the company’s stock.

About Nutanix

Nutanix, Inc engages in the provision of a cloud platform leveraging web-scale engineering and consumer-grade design. It operates through the following geographic segments: United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and Other Americas. The firm also provides software solutions and cloud services to customers’ enterprise infrastructure.