Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) Trading Up 7.6% – What’s Next?

Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG)’s stock price traded up 7.6% during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $72.55 and last traded at $72.8610. 1,029,327 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 71% from the average session volume of 3,537,236 shares. The stock had previously closed at $67.72.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley set a $83.00 price target on Pure Storage in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. UBS Group increased their price objective on Pure Storage from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Pure Storage in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Susquehanna set a $105.00 price target on Pure Storage in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Tigress Financial set a $105.00 price objective on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $94.47.

Pure Storage Price Performance

The stock has a 50 day moving average of $70.33 and a two-hundred day moving average of $77.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.46 billion, a PE ratio of 195.10, a P/E/G ratio of 5.28 and a beta of 1.27.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, December 2nd. The technology company reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.58. The firm had revenue of $964.45 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Pure Storage had a return on equity of 10.60% and a net margin of 3.74%.Pure Storage’s revenue was up 16.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.50 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total transaction of $7,131,000.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Ajay Singh sold 7,178 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.14, for a total transaction of $481,930.92. Following the transaction, the insider owned 215,091 shares in the company, valued at $14,441,209.74. The trade was a 3.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. 5.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Pure Storage

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of PSTG. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S grew its holdings in Pure Storage by 96.3% during the 3rd quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 31,166 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,612,000 after buying an additional 15,286 shares during the last quarter. AlTi Global Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Pure Storage in the third quarter worth $2,517,000. Merit Financial Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Pure Storage by 145.6% in the third quarter. Merit Financial Group LLC now owns 25,943 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,174,000 after acquiring an additional 15,382 shares in the last quarter. Oak Thistle LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Pure Storage during the third quarter valued at $1,653,000. Finally, RBA Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Pure Storage during the third quarter valued at $5,964,000. 83.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.