SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) Reaches New 1-Year High – Should You Buy?

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have commented on SWI. Wedbush assumed coverage on shares of SolarWinds in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $20.00 price target on the stock. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on SolarWinds from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of SolarWinds from $13.00 to $16.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Scotiabank boosted their target price on shares of SolarWinds from $13.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, SolarWinds presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $15.50.

SolarWinds Price Performance

The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $14.04 and a 200-day moving average price of $13.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.48 billion, a PE ratio of 66.09 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a current ratio of 0.71.

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

Insider Activity at SolarWinds

In other news, insider Jason Bliss sold 135,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $13.02, for a total transaction of $1,757,700.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 838,789 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,921,032.78. The trade was a 13.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director William G. Bock sold 16,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $13.13, for a total value of $210,080.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 88,857 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,166,692.41. This trade represents a 15.26 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 351,000 shares of company stock valued at $4,703,780 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 1.95% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of SolarWinds

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in SolarWinds by 57.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,193,026 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $28,619,000 after purchasing an additional 800,467 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in SolarWinds during the third quarter worth about $3,673,000. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in SolarWinds by 48.5% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 825,829 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $9,869,000 after acquiring an additional 269,578 shares in the last quarter. Harvey Partners LLC acquired a new position in SolarWinds in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,958,000. Finally, Public Sector Pension Investment Board acquired a new stake in shares of SolarWinds during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,496,000. 93.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

SolarWinds Company Profile

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.