Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Purchases 137,249 Shares of Pure Storage, Inc. $PSTG

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in shares of Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 225.1% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 198,233 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 137,249 shares during the quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. owned about 0.06% of Pure Storage worth $16,614,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. HighTower Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 1.0% in the first quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 30,427 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,347,000 after purchasing an additional 313 shares during the period. Brooklyn Investment Group grew its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 292.4% during the first quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 1,185 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $52,000 after acquiring an additional 883 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 0.8% during the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,911,591 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $128,896,000 after buying an additional 23,531 shares during the last quarter. United Asset Strategies Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Pure Storage during the first quarter worth about $624,000. Finally, Allstate Corp lifted its position in Pure Storage by 75.7% during the first quarter. Allstate Corp now owns 15,623 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $692,000 after purchasing an additional 6,731 shares during the period. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Pure Storage news, CAO Mona Chu sold 9,091 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.91, for a total value of $771,916.81. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 107,353 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,115,343.23. This represents a 7.81% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CRO Dan Fitzsimons sold 6,051 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $87.42, for a total value of $528,978.42. Following the transaction, the executive owned 62,759 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,486,391.78. This trade represents a 8.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 327,311 shares of company stock valued at $27,896,100. Corporate insiders own 5.60% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on PSTG shares. Bank of America increased their price target on Pure Storage from $76.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 28th. Susquehanna set a $105.00 price target on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 26th. TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Guggenheim boosted their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $93.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 26th. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $95.26.

Pure Storage Price Performance

PSTG stock opened at $69.14 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $84.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $72.46. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 12 month low of $34.51 and a 12 month high of $100.59. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.72 billion, a PE ratio of 181.95, a P/E/G ratio of 7.49 and a beta of 1.27.

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

Pure Storage 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.