Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Invests $2.04 Million in Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLK)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new position in Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLK) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 13,400 shares of the software company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,041,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Clearbridge Investments LLC raised its stake in shares of Splunk by 12.3% in the first quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 5,753,569 shares of the software company’s stock worth $855,038,000 after purchasing an additional 628,288 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in shares of Splunk by 8.0% in the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,302,775 shares of the software company’s stock worth $198,246,000 after purchasing an additional 170,233 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Splunk by 3.8% in the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,207,458 shares of the software company’s stock worth $211,337,000 after purchasing an additional 80,045 shares during the last quarter. Starboard Value LP purchased a new stake in shares of Splunk in the fourth quarter worth approximately $160,720,000. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in shares of Splunk by 8.3% in the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,729,887 shares of the software company’s stock worth $252,996,000 after purchasing an additional 131,909 shares during the last quarter. 87.56% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts recently commented on SPLK shares. TheStreet upgraded Splunk from a “c” rating to a “b” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 27th. StockNews.com started coverage on Splunk in a report on Thursday, April 11th. They set a “buy” rating on the stock. Twenty-three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Splunk presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $135.31.

Splunk Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ SPLK opened at $156.90 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $26.44 billion, a PE ratio of 124.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.42 and a beta of 1.00. Splunk Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $82.19 and a fifty-two week high of $156.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 15.61, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a current ratio of 1.69. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $156.27 and a 200-day moving average of $152.52.

Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The software company reported $2.47 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.05 by $1.42. The company had revenue of $1.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.26 billion. Splunk had a return on equity of 32,117.42% and a net margin of 6.26%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Splunk Inc. will post 1.62 earnings per share for the current year.

About Splunk

Splunk Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops and markets cloud services and licensed software solutions in the United States and internationally. The company offers unified security and observability platform, including Splunk Security that helps security leaders fortify their organization's digital resilience by mitigating cyber risk and meeting compliance requirements; and Splunk Observability, which provides visibility across the full stack of infrastructure, applications, and the digital customer experience.