Ban Ryan Norris Mac Sells 19,756 Shares of Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) Stock

Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ:CFLT) CRO Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 19,756 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.66, for a total value of $605,718.96. Following the completion of the sale, the executive owned 358,890 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,003,567.40. This trade represents a 5.22% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

Ban Ryan Norris Mac also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, February 20th, Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 11,517 shares of Confluent stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.70, for a total value of $353,571.90.
• On Wednesday, February 18th, Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 2,113 shares of Confluent stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.61, for a total value of $64,678.93.
• On Friday, February 13th, Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 1,655 shares of Confluent stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.54, for a total transaction of $50,543.70.
• On Tuesday, December 23rd, Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 3,053 shares of Confluent stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.96, for a total transaction of $91,467.88.
• On Monday, December 22nd, Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 1,218 shares of Confluent stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.96, for a total transaction of $36,491.28.
• On Monday, December 8th, Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 44,114 shares of Confluent stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.77, for a total transaction of $1,313,273.78.

Confluent Stock Performance

Confluent stock opened at $30.64 on Thursday. Confluent, Inc. has a 12-month low of $15.64 and a 12-month high of $33.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 3.83 and a quick ratio of 3.83. The company has a market capitalization of $10.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -35.63 and a beta of 0.95. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $30.41 and its 200 day moving average price is $24.77.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 11th. The company reported $0.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.10 by $0.02. Confluent had a negative net margin of 25.31% and a negative return on equity of 22.66%. The company had revenue of $314.82 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $308.03 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.09 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Confluent, Inc. will post -0.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Confluent

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its stake in Confluent by 28.5% in the second quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 261,007 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,507,000 after acquiring an additional 57,928 shares during the period. Hsbc Holdings PLC lifted its holdings in shares of Confluent by 655.7% in the 2nd quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 243,596 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,013,000 after purchasing an additional 211,360 shares during the last quarter. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Confluent in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $499,000. Neuberger Berman Group LLC acquired a new position in Confluent during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $305,000. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP grew its stake in Confluent by 15.7% during the 2nd quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 4,555,913 shares of the company’s stock worth $113,579,000 after buying an additional 616,822 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 78.09% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Confluent

Here are the key news stories impacting Confluent this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Major institutional inflows — large new stakes from HBK, Norges Bank, Jericho and AQR suggest strong institutional demand and provide a potential floor under the stock. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: IBM / takeover narrative referenced in recent coverage (IBM’s strategic tie/coverage cites the prior ~$11B IBM/Confluent deal), which supports a takeover-premium / strategic-exit thesis for shareholders. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Product/partner momentum — coverage of Confluent’s “Sell With Confluent” partner program and TAM capture reinforces the growth story for event-streaming and cloud data platforms. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst consensus remains an average “Hold” with a consensus price target near $28.7, so Street expectations are mixed rather than uniformly bullish or bearish. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Short-interest data reported for February appears to contain errors (zero / NaN values), so there’s no reliable short-position signal from the latest release.
• Negative Sentiment: Large, high-profile insider selling — CEO Edward Jay Kreps sold ~270,207 shares (~47% reduction), a sizeable liquidity event that typically weighs on sentiment and can trigger short-term selling pressure. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple other executive trims — CFO Rohan Sivaram, CRO Ban Ryan Norris Mac (multiple filings) and CAO Kong Phan also sold shares (Kong Phan sale detailed separately), increasing the overall impression of insider distribution. Read More. • Read More. • Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Specific insider sale: CAO Kong Phan sold 2,277 shares at ~$30.70 (disclosed). Small by dollar amount but adds to the cumulative insider selling narrative. Read More.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on CFLT shares. Truist Financial set a $31.00 target price on Confluent in a research report on Monday, December 8th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered shares of Confluent from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $30.00 to $31.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Confluent from an “overweight” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $31.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, December 8th. William Blair lowered shares of Confluent from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, December 8th. Finally, Mizuho downgraded shares of Confluent from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, December 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $28.71.

About Confluent

Confluent, Inc (NASDAQ: CFLT) is a leading provider of an event streaming platform built on Apache Kafka. The company’s flagship offerings include Confluent Platform—a self-managed software solution—and Confluent Cloud, a fully managed service designed to simplify real-time data processing across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. These products enable enterprises to collect, process and distribute high volumes of data in real time, supporting use cases such as fraud detection, supply chain optimization and personalized customer experiences.

Founded in 2014 by Apache Kafka co-creators Jay Kreps, Neha Narkhede and Jun Rao, Confluent has driven the commercialization of Kafka technologies and extended the platform with tools for data integration, stream processing and enterprise-grade security.