Stock Traders Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE)

Braze, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRZE) saw unusually large options trading on Monday. Stock traders bought 29,673 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 800% compared to the typical daily volume of 3,298 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Astha Malik sold 15,724 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.57, for a total value of $464,958.68. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 326,233 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,646,709.81. The trade was a 4.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CRO Edward M. Mcdonnell sold 29,732 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $31.38, for a total value of $932,990.16. Following the sale, the executive directly owned 409,630 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,854,189.40. This represents a 6.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 456,869 shares of company stock valued at $18,540,085 in the last quarter. Insiders own 12.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Braze

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP acquired a new position in Braze during the 1st quarter valued at about $14,294,000. Squarepoint Ops LLC grew its position in Braze by 13.3% in the 2nd quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 391,337 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,488,000 after purchasing an additional 46,049 shares during the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP increased its stake in shares of Braze by 1,057.5% in the first quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 199,292 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,705,000 after purchasing an additional 182,074 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Braze by 252.9% in the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 167,498 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,955,000 after purchasing an additional 120,033 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Braze in the second quarter valued at approximately $11,814,000. 90.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Braze Stock Performance

BRZE traded up $0.35 during trading on Monday, reaching $46.15. 2,256,151 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,484,102. Braze has a 52 week low of $15.26 and a 52 week high of $46.34. The company has a current ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 1.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $32.63 and a 200 day moving average of $25.14. The stock has a market cap of $5.24 billion, a P/E ratio of -44.81 and a beta of 0.77.

Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, September 8th. The company reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.16 by $0.03. Braze had a negative return on equity of 16.11% and a negative net margin of 13.55%. The company had revenue of $227.23 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $220.27 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.15 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 26.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Braze has set its FY 2027 guidance at 0.640-0.650 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 0.130-0.140 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Braze will post -0.70 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on BRZE shares. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Braze from a “sell (e+)” rating to a “sell (d-)” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 20th. Raymond James Financial cut shares of Braze from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 21st. Stephens downgraded shares of Braze from an “overweight” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $34.00 to $47.50 in a research report on Wednesday, October 21st. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Braze from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $30.00 to $47.50 in a research report on Tuesday, October 20th. Finally, Oppenheimer lowered shares of Braze from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 20th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $43.95.

About Braze

Braze, Inc provides a cloud-based customer engagement platform that helps businesses communicate with customers through personalized, interactive experiences. Its software enables companies to use customer data to create and manage campaigns across channels such as email, mobile push notifications, in-app messages, web messaging and SMS.

The Braze platform includes tools for audience segmentation, campaign and customer-journey orchestration, personalization and performance analysis. Businesses use these capabilities to coordinate communications and adapt them based on customer behavior and preferences.

Founded in 2011 as Appboy, the company adopted the Braze name in 2017.