Stifel Nicolaus Begins Coverage on Flex (NASDAQ:FLEX)

Equities researchers at Stifel Nicolaus initiated coverage on shares of Flex (NASDAQ:FLEX) in a report issued on Tuesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage set a “buy” rating and a $52.00 price target on the technology company’s stock. Stifel Nicolaus’ target price suggests a potential upside of 20.90% from the stock’s previous close.

Several other research firms also recently weighed in on FLEX. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Flex from $43.00 to $49.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Craig Hallum boosted their price objective on Flex from $39.00 to $45.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 31st. KeyCorp assumed coverage on Flex in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. They set an “overweight” rating and a $41.00 target price on the stock. StockNews.com downgraded Flex from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 1st. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group set a $39.00 price target on shares of Flex in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Flex has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $44.33.

Flex Price Performance

FLEX stock opened at $43.01 on Tuesday. Flex has a 52-week low of $25.27 and a 52-week high of $45.10. The business has a fifty day moving average of $40.50 and a two-hundred day moving average of $36.14. The stock has a market cap of $16.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a quick ratio of 0.85, a current ratio of 1.41 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63.

Flex (NASDAQ:FLEX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $0.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.63 by $0.07. Flex had a net margin of 3.95% and a return on equity of 17.93%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Flex will post 2.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Flex

In other Flex news, insider Michael P. Hartung sold 64,807 shares of Flex stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $43.89, for a total transaction of $2,844,379.23. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 233,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,249,456.14. The trade was a 21.72 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Lay Koon Tan sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $43.25, for a total value of $2,162,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 202,850 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,773,262.50. The trade was a 19.77 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.82% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Flex

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in Flex in the 3rd quarter valued at about $29,000. Huntington National Bank raised its stake in shares of Flex by 87.9% during the third quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 1,024 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $34,000 after purchasing an additional 479 shares during the last quarter. R Squared Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Flex during the fourth quarter worth $35,000. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. purchased a new position in Flex in the 4th quarter valued at $38,000. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in Flex by 112.9% in the 4th quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 960 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $38,000 after buying an additional 509 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 94.30% of the company’s stock.

About Flex

Flex Ltd. provides technology, supply chain, and manufacturing solutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. It operates through three segments: Flex Agility Solutions (FAS), Flex Reliability Solutions (FRS), and Nextracker. The FAS segment offers flexible supply and manufacturing system comprising communications, enterprise and cloud solution, which includes data, edge, and communications infrastructure; lifestyle solution including appliances, consumer packaging, floorcare, micro mobility, and audio; and consumer devices, such as mobile and high velocity consumer devices.