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 stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 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 filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Pure Storage Stock Down 4.6 %

Shares of PSTG opened at $49.46 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $16.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 290.94, a P/E/G ratio of 6.79 and a beta of 1.15. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $50.02 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $41.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.08, a current ratio of 1.83 and a quick ratio of 1.80. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 1 year low of $22.14 and a 1 year high of $58.46.

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have weighed in on PSTG shares. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $42.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $66.00 target price on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. Raymond James cut Pure Storage from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $52.00 to $63.00 in a report on Friday. TD Cowen increased their price target on Pure Storage from $42.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, February 29th. Finally, KeyCorp lifted their price objective on Pure Storage from $51.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Pure Storage has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $51.63.

Institutional Trading of Pure Storage

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 1.4% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 46,793,394 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,666,781,000 after purchasing an additional 663,465 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 31,294,297 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,115,955,000 after acquiring an additional 567,358 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of 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 valued at $359,464,000 after acquiring an additional 2,807,489 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in shares of Pure Storage by 3.4% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,296,843 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $153,054,000 after acquiring an additional 140,541 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Polar Capital Holdings Plc raised its holdings in shares of 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 valued at $144,926,000 after acquiring an additional 1,028,104 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.42% of the company’s stock.

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.