California Public Employees Retirement System Cuts Position in Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG)

California Public Employees Retirement System lessened its holdings in Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 8.2% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 498,455 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 44,604 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.16% of Pure Storage worth $18,353,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of PSTG. First Horizon Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Pure Storage in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $33,000. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust bought a new stake in shares of Pure Storage in the 1st quarter worth approximately $33,000. Penserra Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Pure Storage in the 1st quarter worth approximately $47,000. Quarry LP raised its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 51.7% in the 1st quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,784 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $46,000 after purchasing an additional 608 shares during the period. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Pure Storage in the 1st quarter worth approximately $64,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.98% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on PSTG shares. TD Cowen boosted their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $44.00 to $50.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 31st. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $41.00 price target on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Thursday, August 31st. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $38.00 to $42.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 30th. Wedbush boosted their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $39.00 to $45.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 31st. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “buy” rating for the company. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $42.59.

Pure Storage Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:PSTG opened at $36.65 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $11.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -1,832.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.11 and a beta of 1.19. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $35.20 and a 200-day moving average price of $34.64. The company has a current ratio of 1.70, a quick ratio of 1.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 12 month low of $22.14 and a 12 month high of $40.50.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 30th. The technology company reported $0.05 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.04. Pure Storage had a negative net margin of 0.03% and a positive return on equity of 8.97%. The company had revenue of $688.67 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $681.27 million. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.3 EPS for the current year.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides data storage technologies, products, and services in the United States and internationally. The company's Purity software is shared across its products and provides enterprise-class data services, such as data reduction, data protection, and encryption, as well as storage protocols, including block, file, and object.