Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Has $3.84 Million Position in Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System lifted its holdings in shares of Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 0.5% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 86,800 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 400 shares during the quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Pure Storage were worth $3,843,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Pure Storage in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $216,690,000. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership acquired a new stake in Pure Storage in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $210,906,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC raised its position in Pure Storage by 1,725.3% in the 4th quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC now owns 2,525,208 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $155,124,000 after buying an additional 2,386,864 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Pure Storage by 25.4% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,748,553 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $413,982,000 after purchasing an additional 1,366,458 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in Pure Storage by 18.8% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,162,081 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $255,677,000 after purchasing an additional 657,175 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.42% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have weighed in on PSTG shares. Citigroup raised their price target on Pure Storage from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 16th. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $66.00 price target (up from $53.00) on shares of Pure Storage in a research note on Thursday, May 29th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Pure Storage from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $75.00 price target on shares of Pure Storage in a research note on Friday, June 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price target on Pure Storage from $40.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $69.95.

Pure Storage Price Performance

PSTG opened at $56.39 on Monday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $54.37 and a 200 day simple moving average of $55.22. The company has a market capitalization of $18.43 billion, a PE ratio of 152.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.34 and a beta of 1.06. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 1 year low of $34.51 and a 1 year high of $73.67.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 28th. The technology company reported $0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $778.49 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $770.03 million. Pure Storage had a return on equity of 13.98% and a net margin of 3.93%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.32 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Pure Storage news, insider Ajay Singh sold 22,601 shares of Pure Storage stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $55.45, for a total value of $1,253,225.45. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 261,465 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,498,234.25. The trade was a 7.96% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director John Francis Murphy sold 11,234 shares of Pure Storage stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $55.13, for a total value of $619,330.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 21,930 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,209,000.90. This represents a 33.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 147,684 shares of company stock valued at $7,713,802 over the last 90 days. 5.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc engages in the provision of data storage and management technologies, products, and services in the United States and internationally. Its Purity software is shared across its products and provides enterprise-class data services, such as always-on data reduction, data protection, and encryption, as well as storage protocols, including block, file, and object.