Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) Shares Up 0.1%

Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG)’s stock price shot up 0.1% during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $52.65 and last traded at $52.33. 729,283 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 84% from the average session volume of 4,680,966 shares. The stock had previously closed at $52.30.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on PSTG. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $51.00 to $55.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 29th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $42.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $38.00 to $44.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $43.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI increased their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $41.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $50.53.

Pure Storage Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $17.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 307.78, a P/E/G ratio of 6.92 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a current ratio of 1.83, a quick ratio of 1.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $49.77 and its 200 day simple moving average is $41.00.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The technology company reported $0.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $789.81 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $784.31 million. Pure Storage had a net margin of 2.17% and a return on equity of 12.60%. The business’s revenue was down 2.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.27 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Pure Storage

In related news, Director Scott Dietzen sold 147,000 shares of Pure Storage stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $53.49, for a total transaction of $7,863,030.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 100,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,349,000. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, insider Ajay Singh sold 37,588 shares of Pure Storage stock in a transaction on Friday, April 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $53.54, for a total transaction of $2,012,461.52. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 380,834 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,389,852.36. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Scott Dietzen sold 147,000 shares of Pure Storage stock in a transaction on Friday, April 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.49, for a total transaction of $7,863,030.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 100,000 shares in the company, valued at $5,349,000. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 242,012 shares of company stock valued at $12,932,788. Insiders own 6.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. FMR LLC increased its stake in Pure Storage by 1.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 46,793,394 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,666,781,000 after purchasing an additional 663,465 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Pure Storage by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 31,294,297 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,115,955,000 after purchasing an additional 567,358 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in Pure Storage by 24.9% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 14,091,077 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $359,464,000 after purchasing an additional 2,807,489 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley increased its stake in Pure Storage by 3.4% in the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,296,843 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $153,054,000 after purchasing an additional 140,541 shares during the period. Finally, Polar Capital Holdings Plc increased its stake in Pure Storage by 33.8% in the third quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc now owns 4,068,672 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $144,926,000 after purchasing an additional 1,028,104 shares during the period. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides data storage technologies, products, and services in the United States and internationally. The company's Purity software is shared across its products and provides enterprise-class data services, such as data reduction, data protection, and encryption, as well as storage protocols, including block, file, and object.