Are Smart Investors Making the Right Decision? Applovin Corp (APP)

Applovin Corp (NASDAQ: APP) stock jumped 1.02% on Monday to $39.50 against a previous-day closing price of $39.10. With 1.99 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 2.77 million shares. During the session, the Software – Application company that operates in wider Technology sector, reached to the highest price of $40.03 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $39.16. The 52-week range on APP shows that it touched its highest point at $45.10 and its lowest point at $9.14 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $50.83. Beta for the stock currently stands at 1.77.

Price Performance and Earnings:

Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of APP was down-trending over the past week, with a drop of -4.61%, but this was up by 5.11% over a month. Three-month performance surged to 0.05% while six-month performance rose 57.43%. The stock gained 175.07% in the past year, while it has gained 275.12% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for APP yields 0.29 with Next year EPS estimates of 1.57. For the next quarter, that number is 0.35. This implies an EPS growth rate of 263.28% for this year and 85.41% for next year.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 302.71 million APP shares are outstanding with a float of 144.33 million shares on hand for trading. On Oct 30, 2023, short shares totaled 15.87 million, which was 4.73% higher than short shares on Sep 28, 2023. In addition to Mr. Adam Arash Foroughi as the firm’s Co-Founder, CEO & Chairperson, Mr. Herald Y. Chen serves as its President, CFO, Principal Accounting Officer & Director.

Institutional Ownership:

Through their ownership of 56.78% of APP’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company. Other institutions hold 42.12% of APP, in contrast to 28.84% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 17.71%. As the largest shareholder in APP with 9.43% of the stake, GQG Partners LLC holds 26,082,413 shares worth 26,082,413. A second-largest stockholder of APP, The Vanguard Group, Inc., holds 17,875,209 shares, controlling over 6.46% of the firm’s shares. SVB Wealth LLC is the third largest shareholder in APP, holding 7,788,620 shares or 2.82% stake. With a 2.19% stake in APP, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is the largest stakeholder. A total of 6,047,505 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund, which owns about 1.81% of APP stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 4,994,276 shares valued at 181.99 million. Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index F holds 1.01% of the stake in APP, owning 2,790,416 shares worth 101.68 million.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for APP since 0 analysts follow the stock currently. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With APP analysts setting a high price target of $60.00 and a low target of $28.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $50.83. Based on these targets, APP could surge 51.9% to reach the target high and fall by -29.11% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 28.68% from current levels.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded APP stock several times over the past three months with 4 Buys and 20 Sells. In these transactions, 327,658 shares were bought while 57,706,965 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 20 while that of sell transactions has risen to 92 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 17,475,818 while 146,362,740 shares were sold.