Traders Buy Large Volume of Nutanix Call Options (NASDAQ:NTNX)

Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTNX) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Traders acquired 13,779 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 388% compared to the typical volume of 2,821 call options.

Nutanix Trading Down 7.8 %

NTNX stock traded down $5.65 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $66.70. 7,395,775 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,582,859. The stock has a market cap of $17.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -130.25, a P/E/G ratio of 12.05 and a beta of 1.17. Nutanix has a one year low of $40.44 and a one year high of $75.80. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $64.45 and a 200 day simple moving average of $59.35.

Nutanix (NASDAQ:NTNX) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The technology company reported ($0.06) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.08) by $0.02. The company had revenue of $547.95 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $537.12 million. Nutanix had a negative net margin of 5.81% and a negative return on equity of 7.57%. As a group, analysts predict that Nutanix will post 0.31 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have weighed in on the stock. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on shares of Nutanix in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $80.00 price target for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Nutanix from $65.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Bank of America boosted their price target on Nutanix from $72.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Nutanix from $72.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Nutanix from $70.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $78.86.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, COO David Sangster sold 11,950 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.83, for a total transaction of $714,968.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 123,868 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,411,022.44. The trade was a 8.80 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Rukmini Sivaraman sold 24,316 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.85, for a total value of $1,430,996.60. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 192,169 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,309,145.65. The trade was a 11.23 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 6.80% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Nutanix

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Nutanix in the second quarter valued at approximately $25,000. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new position in Nutanix in the 3rd quarter valued at $27,000. Larson Financial Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Nutanix by 122.7% in the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 510 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 281 shares during the period. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. bought a new stake in shares of Nutanix during the second quarter worth $32,000. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Nutanix by 150.7% during the third quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 534 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 321 shares during the period. 85.25% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Nutanix

Nutanix, Inc provides an enterprise cloud platform in North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The company offers hyperconverged infrastructure software stack that converges virtualization, storage, and networking services into a turnkey solution; Acropolis Hypervisor, an enterprise-grade virtualization solution; flow virtual networking and flow network security, which offers services to visualize the network, automate common network operations, and build virtual private networks; Nutanix Kubernetes Engine for automated deployment and management of Kubernetes clusters to simplify the provisioning, operations, and lifecycle management of cloud-native environments, applications, and microservices; and Nutanix Cloud Clusters.