LivePerson Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NASDAQ:LPSN)

LivePerson, Inc. (NASDAQ:LPSN) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Friday. Traders purchased 2,517 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 417% compared to the average volume of 487 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director William Wesemann purchased 100,000 shares of LivePerson stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were bought at an average price of $1.00 per share, with a total value of $100,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 374,835 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $374,835. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 7,834 shares of company stock valued at $6,839. Corporate insiders own 9.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On LivePerson

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vector Capital Management L.P. purchased a new stake in LivePerson during the fourth quarter valued at about $37,089,000. Starboard Value LP purchased a new stake in LivePerson during the first quarter valued at about $156,410,000. AIGH Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in LivePerson during the fourth quarter valued at about $6,102,000. Squarepoint Ops LLC purchased a new stake in LivePerson during the first quarter valued at about $5,625,000. Finally, Two Sigma Investments LP grew its position in LivePerson by 1,629.1% during the first quarter. Two Sigma Investments LP now owns 1,082,447 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $4,774,000 after acquiring an additional 1,019,847 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.83% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Roth Mkm downgraded LivePerson from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $6.00 to $2.00 in a report on Thursday, February 29th. B. Riley dropped their price target on LivePerson from $3.75 to $2.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. Roth Capital downgraded LivePerson from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. StockNews.com upgraded LivePerson from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Finally, Mizuho lowered their target price on LivePerson from $3.00 to $2.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $3.08.

LivePerson Price Performance

LPSN stock traded down $0.06 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $0.50. 1,060,366 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,717,445. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $1.39 and its 200-day moving average price is $2.51. The stock has a market cap of $43.71 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -0.44 and a beta of 1.49. LivePerson has a fifty-two week low of $0.49 and a fifty-two week high of $6.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.63, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a current ratio of 1.20.

LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The technology company reported ($0.26) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.20) by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $95.47 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $95.54 million. LivePerson had a negative return on equity of 47.71% and a negative net margin of 24.99%. Research analysts predict that LivePerson will post -0.68 earnings per share for the current year.

LivePerson Company Profile

LivePerson, Inc engages in conversational artificial intelligence. It enables brands to leverage the Conversational Cloud's intelligence engine to connect with consumers through an integrated suite of mobile and online business messaging technologies. The company offers the Conversational Cloud, an enterprise-class digital customer conversation platform, which enables businesses and consumers to connect through conversational channels, such as voice, in-app, and mobile messaging.