ZM Shares Are Up, But Are Nowhere Near Their 52 Week High.

By Chris Stiles • Tuesday, August 23 16:23 • Permanent Link

Tumbling to a price of $81.95 during today's afternoon trading session, shares of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. are now -45.6% below their average target price of $150.66. Does this mean the stock will reverse course? Analysts are giving ZM an average rating of buy and target prices ranging from $90 to $571.91 dollars per share.

The market seems to share this rosy outlook, since Zoom Video Communications, Inc. has a short interest of only 4.6%. This represents the percentage of the share float that is being shorted, and each short position stands for an investor's expectation that the price of the stock will go down in the future.

When a stock is sold short, it means an investor has borrowed shares of the stock from their broker, and then sold them at the going market price. The investor hopes for the price to decline, so that they might buy those shares back at a lower price in the future. Once they do, they can return the borrowed shares to their broker, and keep the profit they made on the transaction.

Another way to gauge the sentiment on Zoom Video Communications, Inc. is to look at the percentage of institutions that are invested in the stock. In this case, 62.6% of the shares are held by pension, mutual, and hedge funds, which shows that these institutions probably have strong confidence in the stock.

Institutions have vast resources. If institutions are invested in a particular stock, it shows in most cases that they have performed quality research and concluded that it is a good investment. In some cases, however, increases in institutional ownership could be a sign of a takeover attempt or proxy fight, which can actually injure share prices. Also, institutions are not infallible, and can certainly make miscalculations -- often with spectacular results.

Analyst coverage, short ratio, and institutional ownership say alot about how the market views a stock. But markets can be wrong. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.

Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about ZM:

- The stock has trailing 12 month price to earnings (Eps) of $4.01 per share


- Zoom Video Communications, Inc. has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 20.4 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97


- The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 4.1 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95


- Zoom Video Communications, Inc. is a Technology company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 20.64 and 5.39 respectively

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The above analysis is intended for educational purposes only and was performed on the basis of publicly available data. It is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any buy, sell, or other recommendations mentioned in the article are direct quotations of consensus recommendations from the analysts covering the stock, and do not represent the opinions of Market Inference or its writers. Past performance, accounting data, and inferences about market position and corporate valuation are not reliable indicators of future price movements. Market Inference does not provide financial advice. Investors should conduct their own review and analysis of any company of interest before making an investment decision.