Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) Trading Up 8.5% – Still a Buy?

Shares of Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) traded up 8.5% during mid-day trading on Monday . The stock traded as high as $72.45 and last traded at $72.6880. 1,155,106 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 64% from the average session volume of 3,216,655 shares. The stock had previously closed at $66.98.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on PSTG. Guggenheim increased their price objective on Pure Storage from $93.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 26th. Lake Street Capital raised their price target on Pure Storage from $80.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Wall Street Zen upgraded Pure Storage from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, December 20th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Pure Storage from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $83.00 price objective on shares of Pure Storage in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $95.26.

Pure Storage Trading Down 6.4%

The firm has a market cap of $23.30 billion, a PE ratio of 185.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.37 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $75.69 and a 200 day moving average price of $74.43.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, September 9th. The technology company reported $0.44 earnings per share for the quarter. The company had revenue of $763.77 million for the quarter. Pure Storage had a return on equity of 10.60% and a net margin of 3.74%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total transaction of $7,131,000.00. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Ajay Singh sold 7,178 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.14, for a total transaction of $481,930.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 215,091 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,441,209.74. The trade was a 3.23% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 207,178 shares of company stock worth $16,771,931. Corporate insiders own 5.60% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Pure Storage

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Winnow Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Pure Storage during the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Provenance Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Pure Storage during the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Sunbelt Securities Inc. grew its stake in Pure Storage by 287.1% during the third quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 329 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 244 shares during the period. Foster Dykema Cabot & Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Pure Storage in the third quarter worth $28,000. Finally, Assetmark Inc. raised its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 186.6% in the 3rd quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 341 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 222 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.42% of the company’s stock.

Pure Storage Company Profile

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.