Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) Posts Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.04 EPS

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday. The technology company reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.65 by $0.04, FiscalAI reports. Pure Storage had a net margin of 3.74% and a return on equity of 10.60%. The business had revenue of $1.06 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.03 billion.

Pure Storage Trading Up 8.6%

Shares of NYSE PSTG traded up $5.80 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $73.52. 5,953,242 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,642,126. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $70.33 and a 200-day moving average price of $77.55. The company has a market capitalization of $24.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 193.48, a P/E/G ratio of 5.28 and a beta of 1.27. Pure Storage has a 52-week low of $34.51 and a 52-week high of $100.59.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Pure Storage in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Morgan Stanley set a $83.00 price target on Pure Storage in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Northland Securities set a $77.00 price objective on Pure Storage in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Wall Street Zen raised Pure Storage from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on Pure Storage from $70.00 to $77.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $94.47.

Insider Activity at Pure Storage

In related news, insider Ajay Singh sold 7,178 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.14, for a total transaction of $481,930.92. Following the sale, the insider owned 215,091 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,441,209.74. This trade represents a 3.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total value of $7,131,000.00. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 5.60% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Pure Storage

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,953,501 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $733,994,000 after acquiring an additional 88,583 shares during the last quarter. Atreides Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of Pure Storage in the second quarter worth approximately $204,552,000. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Pure Storage by 62.7% in the fourth quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 3,414,715 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $228,820,000 after purchasing an additional 1,315,351 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Pure Storage by 21.3% during the fourth quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,121,252 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $209,155,000 after purchasing an additional 548,533 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Polar Capital Holdings Plc increased its position in Pure Storage by 90.5% during the third quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc now owns 2,831,141 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $237,278,000 after purchasing an additional 1,345,207 shares during the last quarter. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc (NYSE: PSTG) is a technology company that designs and sells data storage hardware and software for enterprise and cloud environments. The company is best known for its all-flash storage arrays that are engineered to deliver high performance, low latency and simplified management compared with traditional disk-based systems. Its product portfolio includes purpose-built arrays and software aimed at transactional databases, virtualized infrastructures, analytics and large-scale file/object workloads.

Key product and software offerings include the FlashArray family for block storage and FlashBlade for file and object workloads, together with Purity, the company’s storage operating environment.