Growing Through Challenges? – Asana Inc. (ASAN)

The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Asana Inc. (NYSE:ASAN). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Technology company by 2.38% to 6.83 million shares with purchase of 0.16 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.30% valued currently at $110.52 million. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 0.16 million to 5.02 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 2.60% or 47879.0 shares – to 1.89 million shares.

With over 1.93 million Asana Inc. (ASAN) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $20.54 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $39.69 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 7.88% and its price on 05/22/23 gained nearly 3.01%. Currently, there are 214.35M common shares owned by the public and among those 79.87M shares have been available to trade.

An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 16 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for ASAN have a consensus price objective of $22.00. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $30.00 and a low of $10.00. The average price target is 8.87% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -105.4% over that period. But an upside of 31.53% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $22.00.

Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 45 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 31 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 19,477,703 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 14 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 48,727 shares.

The top 3 mutual fund holders in Asana Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund, and Champlain Mid Cap Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 2.39 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $38.62 million. The company bought an additional 0.24 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 1.85% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 0.2 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 2.0 million shares valued at over $32.37 million and representing 1.55% of the shares outstanding. Champlain Mid Cap Fund sold 40000.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.96 million shares at a value of $31.71 million. Champlain Mid Cap Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.52% of the shares outstanding.

Shares of Asana Inc. (NYSE: ASAN) opened at $19.83, down -$0.11 from a prior closing price of $19.94. However, the script later moved the day high at 20.97, up 3.01%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 10.25% and 39.63% over the past three months. ASAN shares are trading 49.16% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -9.36% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $11.32 and touched a high of $29.51 over the same period. ASAN has an average intraday trading volume of 2.78 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 19.57%, 8.99%, and 10.41% respectively.

Institutional ownership of Asana Inc. (NYSE: ASAN) shares accounts for 48.10% of the company’s 214.35M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 21.87%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 43.80% and 18.70% respectively.

It has a market capitalization of $4.46B. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$2.05. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 4.74% over the week and 4.43% over the month.

Analysts forecast that Asana Inc. (ASAN) will achieve an EPS of -$0.18 for the current quarter, -$0.15 for the next quarter and -$0.34 for 2025. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.19 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.15. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.3 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -24.70%, and 39.30% over the next financial year.

If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 16 brokerage firm advisors rate Asana Inc. (ASAN) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.70. Specifically, 5 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 9 of the 16 advise that investors “hold,” and 2 rated it as a “Sell.”