Insider Selling: Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) Director Sells 147,000 Shares of Stock

Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) Director Scott Dietzen sold 147,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $53.49, for a total transaction of $7,863,030.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 100,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,349,000. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Pure Storage Trading Down 0.9 %

NYSE:PSTG opened at $51.83 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $49.93 and its 200-day moving average is $41.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 1.80 and a current ratio of 1.83. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 52 week low of $22.14 and a 52 week high of $58.46. The firm has a market cap of $16.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 304.90, a P/E/G ratio of 6.92 and a beta of 1.15.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have issued reports on PSTG shares. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $43.00 to $48.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 29th. TD Cowen upped their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $42.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $38.00 to $44.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $42.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $42.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $50.53.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Pure Storage

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Pure Storage by 1.4% during 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. boosted its stake in Pure Storage by 1.8% during 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. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in Pure Storage by 24.9% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 14,091,077 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $359,464,000 after acquiring an additional 2,807,489 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its stake in Pure Storage by 3.4% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,296,843 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $153,054,000 after acquiring an additional 140,541 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Polar Capital Holdings Plc boosted its stake in Pure Storage by 33.8% during 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. 83.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Pure Storage Company Profile

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.