Okta Inc. (NASDAQ: OKTA) – Not A Clear Buying Opportunity?

The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Okta Inc. (NASDAQ:OKTA) by 2.87%. After grabbing 14.83 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.41 million shares of the Technology Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 9.56% having worth around $1.14 billion. Moreover, Fidelity Management & Research Co increased its share by 4.03 million to have a control over 11.89 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings to 0.11 million shares by acquiring 6.39 million shares or 4.12% of the stake.

Okta Inc. (OKTA) concluded trading on 09/14/23 at a closing price of $86.03, with 4.3 million shares of worth about $370.34 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 3.39% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a loss of about -1.61%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 162.75M shares, out of which, 148.69M shares are available for trading.

A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 43 analysts are covering the OKTA stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $94.86. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $120.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $64.00. The stock’s current price level is 9.24% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in loss of -34.42% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $120.00 would mean a gain of 28.31% for the stock.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 58 times over the past 12 months. They bought 95,982 shares in 33 of the transactions. In 25 selling transactions, insiders dumped 39,098 shares.

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Fidelity Select Port. – Technolog, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Okta Inc. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is currently holding 4.82 million shares of worth totaling $370.61 million. The company recently came selling 5310.0 shares which brought its stake up to 3.11% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund, after selling 3.56 million shares, have now control over 2.30% of the stake in the company. It holds 6236.0 shares of worth $273.86 million.

Okta Inc. (NASDAQ: OKTA) started trading at $87.48, above $0.04 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 87.59, or with a loss of -1.61%. Stock saw a price change of -1.88% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 19.06%. Year-to-date (YTD), OKTA shares are showing a performance of 25.90% which increased to 39.93% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $44.12 but also hit the highest price of $91.50 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Okta Inc. shares is 2.30 million. The stock is currently trading 9.02% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 15.53% for SMA50 and it goes to 16.11% higher than SMA200.

The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 14.83 million shares of Okta Inc. having value of about $1.14 billion. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 0.41 million shares in the company valued at close to $35597579.43, or have control over 2.87% stake in the company. Okta Inc. (NASDAQ: OKTA) currently have 162.75M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 81.50% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 38.03% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 44.44% and 1.87% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $13.59B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 0.98. It has posted earnings per share of -$3.69 in the same period. It has Quick Ratio of 1.80 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for OKTA, volatility over the week remained 3.17% while standing at 3.43% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Okta Inc. (OKTA) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.3 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.35 and it is $1.47 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.29 which is $0.38 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $0 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 10.00% while it is estimated to increase by 24.20% in next year. EPS is likely to grow at an annualized rate of 25.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of -31.30% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 43 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Okta Inc. (OKTA)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.20. Out of those 43 Wall Street analysts, 23 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 15 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 1 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.

Digging deeper we find that several firms have released their research notes about the support levels of the stock. Most recent of them is a note released by Evercore ISI on August 31, 2023 offering an In-line rating for the stock and assigned a target price range of between $65 and $75 to it.