Asana, Inc. (NYSE:ASAN) Short Interest Up 5.6% in October

Asana, Inc. (NYSE:ASAN) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 9,030,000 shares, a growth of 5.6% from the October 15th total of 8,550,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,820,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 5.0 days. Currently, 11.0% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Insider Buying and Selling at Asana

In other news, COO Anne Raimondi sold 29,807 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.99, for a total value of $357,385.93. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 761,088 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,125,445.12. This represents a 3.77 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Eleanor B. Lacey sold 9,308 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.99, for a total transaction of $111,602.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 375,310 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,499,966.90. This trade represents a 2.42 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 44,092 shares of company stock valued at $527,668 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 63.97% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Asana

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Asana by 5.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,326,145 shares of the company’s stock worth $144,462,000 after acquiring an additional 490,823 shares in the last quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC grew its position in Asana by 26.9% in the 1st quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 4,032,035 shares of the company’s stock valued at $62,456,000 after purchasing an additional 854,355 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Asana by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,863,703 shares of the company’s stock valued at $21,605,000 after purchasing an additional 12,055 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in Asana during the second quarter worth $17,100,000. Finally, Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC bought a new position in shares of Asana in the second quarter valued at $5,169,000. 26.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on ASAN. KeyCorp dropped their price objective on Asana from $12.00 to $10.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “underperform” rating and set a $10.00 price objective on shares of Asana in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Asana from $17.00 to $13.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Asana from $19.00 to $15.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. Finally, Citigroup dropped their price target on Asana from $15.00 to $13.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $14.27.

Asana Stock Performance

Shares of ASAN traded down $0.03 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $13.78. 1,061,200 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,987,070. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $12.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $13.26. Asana has a twelve month low of $11.05 and a twelve month high of $23.44. The company has a market cap of $3.14 billion, a P/E ratio of -12.02 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a quick ratio of 1.63, a current ratio of 1.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Asana (NYSE:ASAN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, September 3rd. The company reported ($0.05) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.08) by $0.03. Asana had a negative net margin of 37.73% and a negative return on equity of 81.88%. The business had revenue of $179.21 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $177.68 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted ($0.31) EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Asana will post -1.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Asana Company Profile

Asana, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates a work management platform for individuals, team leads, and executives in the United States and internationally. Its platform helps organizations to orchestrate work from daily tasks to cross-functional strategic initiatives; manage work across a portfolio of projects or workflows, see progress against goals, identify bottlenecks, resource constraints, and milestones; and communicate company-wide goals, monitor status, and oversee work across projects and portfolios to gain real-time insights.