Compass (NYSE:COMP) Shares Gap Up on Strong Earnings

Compass, Inc. (NYSE:COMP) gapped up before the market opened on Wednesday following a stronger than expected earnings report. The stock had previously closed at $7.98, but opened at $8.53. Compass shares last traded at $8.88, with a volume of 3,349,878 shares changing hands.

The company reported ($0.08) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.10) by $0.02. The company had revenue of $1.38 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.38 billion. Compass had a negative return on equity of 49.45% and a negative net margin of 3.70%. During the same period last year, the firm earned ($0.09) earnings per share.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on COMP shares. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Compass from $11.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of Compass from $8.50 to $9.50 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on shares of Compass from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of Compass from $8.00 to $9.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays lifted their target price on Compass from $6.00 to $7.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $8.22.

Insider Activity

In related news, major shareholder Excalibur (Cayman) Ltd Svf sold 10,000,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.33, for a total transaction of $63,300,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 58,070,273 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $367,584,828.09. This trade represents a 14.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Robert L. Reffkin sold 224,510 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.90, for a total transaction of $1,773,629.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,139,136 shares in the company, valued at $8,999,174.40. This represents a 16.46 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 11,728,326 shares of company stock valued at $74,520,082. Insiders own 6.25% of the company’s stock.

Compass Trading Up 10.9 %

The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $6.64 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $6.17. The company has a market cap of $4.52 billion, a PE ratio of -22.09 and a beta of 2.95.

About Compass

Compass, Inc provides real estate brokerage services in the United States. It operates a cloud-based platform that provides an integrated suite of software for customer relationship management, marketing, client service, operations, and other functionality in the real estate industry. The company offers mobile apps that allow agents to manage their business anytime and anywhere, as well as designs consumer-grade user interfaces, automated and simplified workflows for agent-client interactions, and insight-rich dashboards and reports.