Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) Rating Lowered to Hold at StockNews.com

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) was downgraded by StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a note issued to investors on Friday.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on PSTG. Bank of America lifted their price target on Pure Storage from $42.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 29th. TD Cowen raised their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $42.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $45.00 to $50.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $51.00 to $55.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $41.00 to $46.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 29th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Pure Storage has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $51.63.

Pure Storage Trading Up 1.4 %

NYSE:PSTG opened at $52.95 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $17.20 billion, a PE ratio of 311.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.78 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a quick ratio of 1.80, a current ratio of 1.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08. Pure Storage has a 52-week low of $22.14 and a 52-week high of $58.46. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $50.86 and a 200-day simple moving average of $41.79.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The technology company reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.10. Pure Storage had a net margin of 2.17% and a return on equity of 12.60%. The firm had revenue of $789.81 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $784.31 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Pure Storage will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Pure Storage news, CFO P. Kevan Krysler sold 15,286 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $52.80, for a total transaction of $807,100.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 507,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,813,107.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other Pure Storage news, CFO P. Kevan Krysler sold 15,286 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $52.80, for a total transaction of $807,100.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 507,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,813,107.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Roxanne Taylor sold 36,860 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, April 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.76, for a total transaction of $1,981,593.60. Following the sale, the director now owns 18,883 shares in the company, valued at $1,015,150.08. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 286,581 shares of company stock valued at $15,266,704. Company insiders own 6.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Pure Storage

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Pure Storage by 1.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 46,793,394 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,666,781,000 after acquiring an additional 663,465 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Pure Storage by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 31,294,297 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,115,955,000 after acquiring an additional 567,358 shares in the last quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc increased its position in shares of Pure Storage by 33.8% in the third quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc now owns 4,068,672 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $144,926,000 after acquiring an additional 1,028,104 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its position in shares of Pure Storage by 4.2% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 4,028,716 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $143,664,000 after acquiring an additional 160,877 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Pure Storage by 61.5% in the third quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 3,399,759 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $121,081,000 after acquiring an additional 1,294,285 shares in the last quarter. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.