J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG Buys Shares of 8,973 Okta, Inc. $OKTA

J. Safra Sarasin Holding AG purchased a new stake in Okta, Inc. (NASDAQ:OKTA) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm purchased 8,973 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $776,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Okta by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,803,227 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,815,956,000 after acquiring an additional 1,074,977 shares during the last quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of Okta by 276.9% in the third quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. now owns 1,403,499 shares of the company’s stock valued at $128,701,000 after purchasing an additional 1,031,083 shares in the last quarter. Bain Capital Public Equity Management II LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Okta in the second quarter valued at approximately $73,866,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Okta by 816.2% in the third quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 641,382 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,815,000 after purchasing an additional 571,381 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its stake in shares of Okta by 122.2% during the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 967,166 shares of the company’s stock worth $88,679,000 after purchasing an additional 531,800 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.64% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

OKTA has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. DA Davidson reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $110.00 target price on shares of Okta in a research note on Thursday, March 5th. Scotiabank dropped their price target on Okta from $85.00 to $80.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 5th. Zacks Research cut Okta from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, March 26th. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on Okta from $115.00 to $100.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 5th. Finally, Mizuho decreased their price objective on Okta from $110.00 to $100.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 17th. Twenty-six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $103.25.

Okta Stock Performance

OKTA stock opened at $80.19 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $80.73 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $85.69. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 61.21, a PEG ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 0.76. Okta, Inc. has a one year low of $68.77 and a one year high of $127.57.

Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 4th. The company reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $761.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $749.87 million. Okta had a return on equity of 4.18% and a net margin of 8.05%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.78 EPS. Okta has set its FY 2027 guidance at 3.740-3.820 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 0.840-0.860 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Okta, Inc. will post 0.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Okta announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback plan on Monday, January 5th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to purchase up to 6.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CRO Jonathan James Addison sold 23,304 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $77.79, for a total transaction of $1,812,818.16. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive owned 4,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $339,475.56. This represents a 84.23% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Todd Mckinnon sold 11,263 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.01, for a total transaction of $912,415.63. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 97,083 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,864,693.83. The trade was a 10.40% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 66,956 shares of company stock valued at $5,493,618 in the last three months. Company insiders own 5.68% of the company’s stock.

Okta 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.