D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. Decreases Stake in Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX)

D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. lessened its stake in shares of Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) by 12.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 37,916 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 5,321 shares during the quarter. D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc.’s holdings in Flex were worth $1,456,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. R Squared Ltd purchased a new stake in Flex in the fourth quarter worth $35,000. Marshall & Sterling Wealth Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Flex in the 4th quarter worth about $35,000. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Flex during the 4th quarter valued at about $38,000. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its position in shares of Flex by 112.9% during the fourth quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 960 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $38,000 after buying an additional 509 shares during the period. Finally, Huntington National Bank raised its stake in Flex by 46.7% in the fourth quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 1,502 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $58,000 after buying an additional 478 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 94.30% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

FLEX has been the topic of several research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on Flex from $52.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. KeyCorp upped their target price on shares of Flex from $35.00 to $44.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 9th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Flex from $49.00 to $50.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 8th. Stifel Nicolaus assumed coverage on shares of Flex in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. They set a “buy” rating and a $52.00 target price for the company. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their target price on shares of Flex from $53.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 10th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $45.33.

Insider Activity at Flex

In other Flex news, EVP David Scott Offer sold 87,093 shares of Flex stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.43, for a total value of $3,172,797.99. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 71,001 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,586,566.43. The trade was a 55.09% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Revathi Advaithi sold 164,700 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $41.99, for a total value of $6,915,753.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,319,823 shares in the company, valued at $55,419,367.77. The trade was a 11.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 489,255 shares of company stock valued at $19,589,788 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.82% of the company’s stock.

Flex Stock Performance

Shares of FLEX stock opened at $41.44 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 1.41. The company has a market capitalization of $15.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 0.96. Flex Ltd. has a one year low of $25.11 and a one year high of $45.10. The company’s 50-day moving average is $34.87 and its 200 day moving average is $37.88.

Flex (NASDAQ:FLEX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The technology company reported $0.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.69 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $6.40 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.22 billion. Flex had a net margin of 3.95% and a return on equity of 17.93%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.57 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Flex Ltd. will post 2.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Flex Profile

Flex Ltd. provides technology, supply chain, and manufacturing solutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. It operates through three segments: Flex Agility Solutions (FAS), Flex Reliability Solutions (FRS), and Nextracker. The FAS segment offers flexible supply and manufacturing system comprising communications, enterprise and cloud solution, which includes data, edge, and communications infrastructure; lifestyle solution including appliances, consumer packaging, floorcare, micro mobility, and audio; and consumer devices, such as mobile and high velocity consumer devices.