Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO)

Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ:CRTO) was the target of unusually large options trading on Tuesday. Stock investors purchased 15,408 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 560% compared to the typical daily volume of 2,336 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Criteo news, CFO Sarah Js Glickman sold 5,496 shares of Criteo stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.49, for a total transaction of $250,013.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 320,201 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,565,943.49. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 1.71% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Criteo

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CRTO. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its position in Criteo by 67.3% during the 2nd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 738 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 297 shares during the period. Mather Group LLC. purchased a new stake in shares of Criteo during the first quarter worth about $48,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Criteo by 868.1% in the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,394 shares of the information services provider’s stock worth $53,000 after purchasing an additional 1,250 shares during the last quarter. Covestor Ltd increased its holdings in Criteo by 64.1% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,838 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $64,000 after purchasing an additional 718 shares during the period. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. increased its holdings in Criteo by 7,011.5% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,849 shares of the information services provider’s stock valued at $65,000 after purchasing an additional 1,823 shares during the period. 94.27% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Criteo Stock Performance

CRTO stock opened at $42.35 on Thursday. Criteo has a one year low of $22.10 and a one year high of $49.93. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $45.10 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $39.44. The company has a market capitalization of $2.40 billion, a PE ratio of 43.66 and a beta of 0.99.

Criteo (NASDAQ:CRTO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The information services provider reported $1.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.77 by $0.31. The business had revenue of $471.31 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $263.64 million. Criteo had a net margin of 4.54% and a return on equity of 15.64%. The company’s revenue was up .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.12 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Criteo will post 2.8 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on CRTO shares. DA Davidson raised shares of Criteo from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $43.00 to $58.00 in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. StockNews.com lowered Criteo from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 21st. KeyCorp downgraded Criteo from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on Criteo from $40.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Criteo from $40.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $50.11.

Criteo Company Profile

Criteo SA, a technology company, provides marketing and monetization services on the open Internet in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. The company's Criteo Shopper Graph, which derives clients' proprietary commerce data, such as transaction activity on their digital properties.