Okta Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NASDAQ:OKTA)

Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKTA) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Monday. Traders bought 16,957 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of 52% compared to the average daily volume of 11,146 put options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on shares of Okta from $130.00 to $121.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. TD Cowen restated a “hold” rating on shares of Okta in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on Okta from $123.00 to $110.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of Okta in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Susquehanna cut their target price on Okta from $105.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Twenty-five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $112.56.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Okta news, CEO Todd Mckinnon sold 11,286 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.96, for a total value of $1,026,574.56. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Larissa Schwartz sold 1,899 shares of Okta stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.74, for a total value of $172,315.26. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 38,164 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,463,001.36. The trade was a 4.74% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 37,245 shares of company stock valued at $3,385,624 in the last 90 days. 5.68% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Okta

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in OKTA. Promus Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Okta in the 2nd quarter worth about $27,000. Root Financial Partners LLC bought a new stake in Okta during the 3rd quarter valued at about $26,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC boosted its position in Okta by 825.0% in the 4th quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 296 shares of the company’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 264 shares during the period. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Okta by 88.3% in the 2nd quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 339 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 159 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Torren Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Okta in the 4th quarter valued at about $32,000. Institutional investors own 86.64% of the company’s stock.

Okta Price Performance

NASDAQ:OKTA opened at $69.51 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $12.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 63.77, a PEG ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 0.77. Okta has a 1 year low of $68.77 and a 1 year high of $127.57. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $87.75 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $88.34.

Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, December 2nd. The company reported $0.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.76 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $742.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $730.23 million. Okta had a return on equity of 3.77% and a net margin of 6.87%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.67 EPS. Okta has set its FY 2026 guidance at 3.430-3.440 EPS and its Q4 2026 guidance at 0.840-0.850 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Okta will post 0.42 EPS for the current year.

Okta announced that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan on Monday, January 5th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to reacquire up to 6.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Okta Company Profile

Okta, Inc is a publicly traded provider of identity and access management solutions, headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2009 by Todd McKinnon and Frederic Kerrest, the company completed its initial public offering in April 2017. Under the leadership of McKinnon as chief executive officer and Kerrest as chief operating officer, Okta has grown into a leading vendor in the cybersecurity space, focusing on secure user authentication, single sign-on and lifecycle management for digital identities.

At the core of Okta’s offering is the Okta Identity Cloud, a suite of cloud-native services that enable organizations to manage user access across web and mobile applications, on-premises systems and APIs.