Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) Cut to “Market Perform” at Citizens Jmp

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) was downgraded by analysts at Citizens Jmp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report issued on Friday.

CFLT has been the subject of several other research reports. UBS Group downgraded shares of Confluent from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the company from $29.00 to $31.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 9th. Oppenheimer lowered Confluent from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 9th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on Confluent from $25.00 to $27.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 28th. Evercore ISI set a $31.00 target price on Confluent in a report on Monday, December 8th. Finally, William Blair cut Confluent from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, December 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, four have assigned a Buy rating, twenty-eight have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Confluent currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $28.71.

Confluent Stock Performance

Shares of Confluent stock opened at $30.42 on Friday. Confluent has a fifty-two week low of $15.64 and a fifty-two week high of $37.90. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.64 billion, a P/E ratio of -33.80 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 4.01 and a quick ratio of 4.01. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $26.24 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $23.15.

Confluent (NASDAQ:CFLT) last issued its earnings results on Monday, October 27th. The company reported $0.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.10 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $298.52 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $292.69 million. Confluent had a negative return on equity of 25.40% and a negative net margin of 27.32%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 19.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.10 EPS. Confluent has set its Q4 2025 guidance at 0.090-0.100 EPS and its FY 2025 guidance at 0.390-0.400 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Confluent will post -0.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Confluent news, CEO Edward Jay Kreps sold 232,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.10, for a total transaction of $6,998,250.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 339,367 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,214,946.70. This represents a 40.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CRO Ban Ryan Norris Mac sold 3,053 shares of Confluent stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.96, for a total transaction of $91,467.88. Following the transaction, the executive owned 332,679 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,967,062.84. This represents a 0.91% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 1,455,620 shares of company stock worth $40,630,407 in the last quarter. Insiders own 9.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Confluent

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CFLT. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Confluent by 10.5% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 31,347,214 shares of the company’s stock valued at $620,675,000 after acquiring an additional 2,970,708 shares in the last quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Confluent by 6.7% during the second quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 11,590,026 shares of the company’s stock valued at $288,939,000 after purchasing an additional 727,943 shares in the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Confluent by 3.8% during the second quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC now owns 9,639,102 shares of the company’s stock worth $240,303,000 after purchasing an additional 356,277 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its position in Confluent by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 8,592,443 shares of the company’s stock worth $214,210,000 after purchasing an additional 143,232 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in Confluent in the 3rd quarter worth about $163,667,000. Institutional investors own 78.09% of the company’s stock.

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.