Flex (NASDAQ:FLEX) Upgraded at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Flex (NASDAQ:FLEX) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report released on Friday morning.

Several other brokerages have also recently commented on FLEX. Barclays raised their target price on Flex from $43.00 to $49.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. KeyCorp assumed coverage on Flex in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. They set an “overweight” rating and a $41.00 price target for the company. Craig Hallum raised their price target on Flex from $39.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Stifel Nicolaus assumed coverage on Flex in a research note on Tuesday. They set a “buy” rating and a $52.00 price target for the company. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group set a $39.00 price target on Flex in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Flex has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $44.33.

Flex Stock Performance

FLEX opened at $42.51 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $16.29 billion, a PE ratio of 17.14, a P/E/G 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. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $40.64 and a 200-day simple moving average of $36.26. Flex has a fifty-two week low of $25.27 and a fifty-two week high of $45.10.

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

Insider Activity

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

Institutional Trading of Flex

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in FLEX. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in Flex in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Huntington National Bank grew its holdings in Flex by 87.9% in the 3rd quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 1,024 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 479 shares during the last quarter. R Squared Ltd acquired a new stake in Flex in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Marshall & Sterling Wealth Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in Flex in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Finally, SBI Securities Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in Flex in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $38,000. 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.