Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS) Short Interest Up 25.4% in September

Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest during the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,190,000 shares, an increase of 25.4% from the August 31st total of 4,140,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,920,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.7 days. Currently, 5.6% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have weighed in on ZS shares. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $255.00 to $215.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. UBS Group cut their price target on shares of Zscaler from $270.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Needham & Company LLC dropped their target price on shares of Zscaler from $290.00 to $235.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Oppenheimer decreased their price target on shares of Zscaler from $260.00 to $230.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Zscaler from $230.00 to $220.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $218.39.

Insider Activity at Zscaler

In other Zscaler news, CEO Jagtar Singh Chaudhry sold 2,852 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $171.28, for a total value of $488,490.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 361,432 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $61,906,072.96. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Jagtar Singh Chaudhry sold 2,852 shares of Zscaler stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $171.28, for a total transaction of $488,490.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 361,432 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $61,906,072.96. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Andrew William Fraser Brown sold 8,000 shares of Zscaler stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $174.10, for a total transaction of $1,392,800.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 25,907 shares in the company, valued at $4,510,408.70. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 24,120 shares of company stock valued at $4,153,834. Insiders own 19.20% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Zscaler

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Zscaler by 3.0% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 145,455 shares of the company’s stock valued at $32,230,000 after purchasing an additional 4,257 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC increased its position in Zscaler by 26.8% during the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 9,123 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,021,000 after acquiring an additional 1,928 shares during the period. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. increased its position in Zscaler by 64.9% during the fourth quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 19,855 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,399,000 after acquiring an additional 7,817 shares during the period. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC increased its position in Zscaler by 132.2% during the fourth quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 2,715 shares of the company’s stock worth $602,000 after acquiring an additional 1,546 shares during the period. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp increased its position in Zscaler by 41.7% during the fourth quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 82,020 shares of the company’s stock worth $18,172,000 after acquiring an additional 24,132 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 46.45% of the company’s stock.

Zscaler Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of ZS opened at $171.77 on Monday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $178.92 and a 200 day moving average price of $181.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.96 billion, a PE ratio of -336.80 and a beta of 0.82. Zscaler has a 52-week low of $146.71 and a 52-week high of $259.61.

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, September 3rd. The company reported ($0.05) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.14) by $0.09. Zscaler had a negative net margin of 2.66% and a negative return on equity of 3.46%. The company had revenue of $592.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $567.46 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned ($0.17) EPS. Zscaler’s revenue was up 30.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Zscaler will post -0.92 EPS for the current year.

About Zscaler

Zscaler, Inc operates as a cloud security company worldwide. The company offers Zscaler Internet Access solution that provides users, workloads, IoT, and OT devices secure access to externally managed applications, including software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and internet destinations; and Zscaler Private Access solution, which is designed to provide access to managed applications hosted internally in data centers, and private or public clouds.