Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) Given Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) have received a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the nineteen ratings firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have given a hold recommendation and twelve have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $95.2632.

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Wall Street Zen lowered Pure Storage from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 23rd. Wedbush upped their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Morgan Stanley set a $83.00 price target on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $70.00 to $77.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Evercore ISI reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd.

Insider Buying and Selling at Pure Storage

In other Pure Storage news, 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 sale, the insider directly owned 215,091 shares in the company, valued at $14,441,209.74. This represents a 3.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total transaction of $7,131,000.00. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 207,178 shares of company stock worth $16,771,931 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 5.60% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Pure Storage

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Washington Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 32.3% in the fourth quarter. Washington Capital Management Inc. now owns 8,200 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $549,000 after acquiring an additional 2,000 shares in the last quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC boosted its holdings in Pure Storage by 4.7% in the fourth quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC now owns 6,292 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $422,000 after purchasing an additional 285 shares during the period. Abacus FCF Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Pure Storage by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Abacus FCF Advisors LLC now owns 180,113 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $12,069,000 after purchasing an additional 4,180 shares during the period. Sanctuary Advisors LLC grew its stake in Pure Storage by 14.2% during the 4th quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 21,966 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,472,000 after purchasing an additional 2,724 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky increased its holdings in Pure Storage by 1.3% during the 4th quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 95,760 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $6,417,000 after purchasing an additional 1,200 shares during the period. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Pure Storage Price Performance

Pure Storage stock opened at $72.65 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $72.70 and a 200-day simple moving average of $75.49. The stock has a market cap of $23.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 191.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.25 and a beta of 1.26. Pure Storage has a 1-year low of $34.51 and a 1-year high of $100.59.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, September 9th. The technology company reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter. The firm 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%. Equities analysts expect that Pure Storage will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.