AlphaQuest LLC Sells 20,681 Shares of Pure Storage, Inc. $PSTG

AlphaQuest LLC trimmed its stake in shares of Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 96.9% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 668 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 20,681 shares during the quarter. AlphaQuest LLC’s holdings in Pure Storage were worth $56,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Pure Storage in the 2nd quarter valued at about $225,203,000. Atreides Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Pure Storage during the second quarter worth approximately $204,552,000. Federated Hermes Inc. grew its position in shares of Pure Storage by 1,560.9% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 1,343,658 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $77,368,000 after purchasing an additional 1,262,758 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 158.4% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,938,125 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $110,473,000 after purchasing an additional 1,188,126 shares during the period. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 75.0% during the second quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,525,955 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $145,445,000 after purchasing an additional 1,082,606 shares during the period. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Ajay Singh sold 7,178 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.14, for a total transaction of $481,930.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 215,091 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,441,209.74. The trade was a 3.23% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total value of $7,131,000.00. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. 5.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have commented on PSTG shares. Barclays upped their price objective on Pure Storage from $70.00 to $77.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Pure Storage in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Citigroup lowered their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $110.00 to $105.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Susquehanna set a $105.00 price objective on shares of Pure Storage in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $95.26.

Pure Storage Stock Up 4.4%

Shares of Pure Storage stock opened at $73.93 on Monday. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 12-month low of $34.51 and a 12-month high of $100.59. The company has a market capitalization of $24.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 194.56, a PEG ratio of 5.76 and a beta of 1.27. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $70.30 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $76.82.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, December 2nd. The technology company reported $0.58 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58. Pure Storage had a net margin of 3.74% and a return on equity of 10.60%. The company had revenue of $964.45 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.50 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 16.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current 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.