SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) Reaches New 1-Year High – Still a Buy?

SolarWinds Co. (NYSE:SWI)’s share price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Monday . The stock traded as high as $14.95 and last traded at $14.75, with a volume of 83666 shares. The stock had previously closed at $14.50.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

SWI has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of SolarWinds from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on SolarWinds from $13.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Wedbush began coverage on shares of SolarWinds in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $20.00 price target for the company. Finally, Scotiabank upped their price objective on SolarWinds from $13.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, SolarWinds has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $15.50.

SolarWinds Stock Up 0.2 %

The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $14.11 and a 200 day moving average price of $13.14. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 68.12 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a current ratio of 0.71, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88.

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $200.03 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $194.03 million. SolarWinds had a return on equity of 7.96% and a net margin of 4.93%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.11 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that SolarWinds Co. will post 0.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at SolarWinds

In related news, insider Jason Bliss sold 135,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $13.02, for a total value of $1,757,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 838,789 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,921,032.78. This represents a 13.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna sold 200,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $13.68, for a total value of $2,736,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,212,171 shares in the company, valued at approximately $30,262,499.28. This trade represents a 8.29 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 351,000 shares of company stock valued at $4,703,780 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 1.95% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SolarWinds

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of SWI. State Street Corp raised its stake in SolarWinds by 57.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,193,026 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $28,619,000 after buying an additional 800,467 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of SolarWinds by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,290,044 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $16,839,000 after purchasing an additional 16,730 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of SolarWinds by 48.5% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 825,829 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $9,869,000 after purchasing an additional 269,578 shares during the period. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. grew its position in shares of SolarWinds by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 566,204 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $7,389,000 after purchasing an additional 25,416 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in SolarWinds by 7.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 454,454 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,931,000 after purchasing an additional 30,707 shares in the last quarter. 93.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About SolarWinds

SolarWinds Corporation provides information technology (IT) management software products in the United States and internationally. It provides a suite of network management software that offers real-time visibility into network utilization and bandwidth, as well as the ability to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance problems; and a suite of infrastructure management products, which monitors and analyzes the performance of applications and their supporting infrastructure, including servers, physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure, storage, and databases.