Five9 (NASDAQ:FIVN) Cut to “In-Line” at Evercore

Five9 (NASDAQ:FIVN) was downgraded by research analysts at Evercore from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating in a research note issued to investors on Friday, Marketbeat.com reports. They presently have a $24.00 target price on the software maker’s stock. Evercore‘s price objective would indicate a potential downside of 29.70% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities analysts also recently commented on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Five9 from $25.00 to $35.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on shares of Five9 from $29.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price target on Five9 from $33.00 to $39.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, August 24th. Barclays increased their price target on Five9 from $34.00 to $40.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 13th. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded Five9 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 9th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $35.06.

Five9 Stock Down 6.1%

Shares of NASDAQ FIVN opened at $34.14 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $2.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.48 and a beta of 1.56. The company has a current ratio of 4.15, a quick ratio of 4.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. Five9 has a 12 month low of $13.29 and a 12 month high of $40.00. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $34.67 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $24.43.

Five9 (NASDAQ:FIVN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 5th. The software maker reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.80 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $323.30 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $319.04 million. Five9 had a net margin of 4.94% and a return on equity of 12.92%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.78 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Five9 will post 1.55 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CFO Bryan M. Lee sold 19,308 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $33.34, for a total transaction of $643,728.72. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 290,643 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,690,037.62. This represents a 6.23% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, President Andy Dignan sold 17,767 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.03, for a total transaction of $622,378.01. Following the completion of the transaction, the president directly owned 257,920 shares in the company, valued at $9,034,937.60. This trade represents a 6.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 83,831 shares of company stock worth $2,821,366 in the last 90 days. 1.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Five9

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Anson Funds Management LP lifted its position in Five9 by 35.6% in the 1st quarter. Anson Funds Management LP now owns 2,086,675 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $31,655,000 after acquiring an additional 547,304 shares in the last quarter. S Squared Technology LLC bought a new stake in Five9 during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $10,983,957. Deutsche Bank AG bought a new stake in Five9 during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $10,432,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in Five9 during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $10,429,000. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH purchased a new stake in shares of Five9 in the second quarter worth approximately $6,690,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 96.64% of the company’s stock.

More Five9 News

Here are the key news stories impacting Five9 this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Q3 revenue rose 13% year over year to $323.3 million, topping the $319.0 million consensus estimate. Earnings of $0.82 per share also beat expectations of $0.80 and were up from $0.78 a year earlier. Zacks Q3 results
• Neutral Sentiment: Five9 expects fourth-quarter adjusted EPS of $0.88–$0.92. The articles provided no analyst consensus for this outlook, so it is difficult to assess it against market expectations. Q4 EPS outlook
• Neutral Sentiment: The planned $325 million cash acquisition of Level AI is intended to expand Five9’s AI tools for customer service, including automation and agent support. The deal could strengthen its platform, though the cash outlay and integration bring execution risks. Five9 Level AI acquisition announcement
• Negative Sentiment: Gross margins weakened: GAAP gross margin was 53.4%, down from 55.0% a year earlier. This may temper the positive impact of revenue and earnings growth. Five9 Q3 financial results

About Five9

Five9, Inc is a cloud-based software company that provides customer experience and contact center solutions. Its platform enables organizations to manage customer interactions across voice, chat, email, social media and other digital channels without relying on traditional on-premises contact center infrastructure.

The company’s Intelligent CX Platform includes tools for inbound and outbound communications, digital engagement, workforce optimization, workflow automation, analytics and reporting.