On May 8, 2023, GoDaddy (NYSE:GDDY) opened at $69.65 per share. The technology company has a market cap of $10.71 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.33. Despite being down from its 52-week high of $85.32, several research firms have given this stock ratings ranging from “buy” to “strong buy.”
In January, Evercore ISI raised its rating from “in-line” to “outperform,” boosting the target price for GDDY stock from $86 to $103 per share. Raymond James also increased its price objective on shares of GoDaddy from $88 to $94 in February, giving the company a “strong buy” rating.
Meanwhile, Piper Sandler lowered its price objective on GDDY shares from $88 to $84 in March. Benchmark maintained a “buy” rating on the stock in February with a target price of $100 per share. Finally, StockNews.com gave GoDaddy a “buy” rating on March 16th.
According to Bloomberg data, analysts have given GDDY an overall consensus rating of “moderate buy.” The consensus price target is currently set at$93.10 per share.
Several large institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in GoDaddy based on Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.
Morgan Stanley grew its holdings in shares of GoDaddy by over 517% in Q4 2022 alone. This brings their total investments in the technology firm up to over six million shares valued at more than $458 million.
Starboard Value LP also boosted its holdings by nearly 24% during Q4 of that same year and now owns more than ten million shares worth over three-quarters of a billion dollars.
Other notable institutional investors include Norges Bank ($116 million), Pacer Advisors Inc. ($60.67 million), and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ($116.9 million). In total, over 97% of GDDY shares are now owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
GoDaddy recently reported Q1 earnings on May 4th, citing a quarterly revenue increase of 3.3%. However, the company missed its consensus EPS estimate of $0.52 by $0.22 with an actual EPS of only $0.30.
Despite this setback, many industry experts and investors remain bullish on GoDaddy stock for the long term based on its strong market position in website hosting and domain registry services, among other factors.
William Blair Increases Q2 2023 Earnings Estimates for GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY)
GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY) has recently been in the news with William Blair, a Chicago-based investment bank, increasing their Q2 2023 earnings estimates for the technology company. In a report released on Friday, May 5th, William Blair’s analyst, M. Pfau predicted that GoDaddy would post earnings of $0.63 per share for the quarter, up from their previous estimate of $0.56. The estimates were based on recent market trends and GoDaddy’s strong position in the industry.
This news comes shortly after GoDaddy CEO Amanpal Singh Bhutani sold 7,950 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.96, for a total transaction of $595,932.00. Following this transaction, Bhutani now holds 280,245 shares in the company valued at $21,007,165.20.
Additionally, insiders within the company have also sold their shares over the last quarter which equated to a total value of $1,896,352 with insiders owning only 0.37% of stocks in GDDY.
Despite these insider transactions and recent buzz surrounding GoDaddy as reported by William Blair’s analyst M. Pfau; GoDaddy’s consensus estimate for current full-year earnings is still trailing at $2.53 per share.
It will be interesting to see how these insider transactions and market analyses affect GoDaddy’s future performance as it continues to be a major player within its industry domain.
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