Evercore ISI Lowers Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) Price Target to $70.00

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) had its target price dropped by equities researchers at Evercore ISI from $75.00 to $70.00 in a note issued to investors on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the technology company’s stock. Evercore ISI’s target price points to a potential upside of 36.48% from the company’s current price.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on PSTG. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $50.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 30th. Needham & Company LLC dropped their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $80.00 to $62.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $57.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. Northland Capmk cut shares of Pure Storage from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price target on shares of Pure Storage from $65.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Pure Storage presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $65.85.

Pure Storage Price Performance

Shares of Pure Storage stock opened at $51.29 on Thursday. Pure Storage has a 52-week low of $31.00 and a 52-week high of $70.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 183.18, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.29 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a fifty day moving average of $60.47 and a 200-day moving average of $56.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a current ratio of 2.00.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 29th. The technology company reported ($0.02) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04) by $0.02. Pure Storage had a net margin of 3.19% and a return on equity of 15.34%. The company had revenue of $693.48 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $681.37 million. Equities research analysts expect that Pure Storage will post 0.47 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Mallun Yen sold 4,818 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.78, for a total value of $312,110.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 35,498 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,299,560.44. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, Director Mallun Yen sold 4,818 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.78, for a total value of $312,110.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 35,498 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,299,560.44. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CRO Dan Fitzsimons sold 9,881 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.32, for a total transaction of $586,140.92. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive now owns 115,601 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,857,451.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 328,995 shares of company stock worth $19,175,193 in the last three months. 6.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Pure Storage

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in PSTG. Norges Bank bought a new position in Pure Storage in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $115,452,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in Pure Storage by 56.1% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 3,696,390 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $237,345,000 after acquiring an additional 1,327,873 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in Pure Storage by 4,095.7% in the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,121,344 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $58,299,000 after acquiring an additional 1,094,618 shares in the last quarter. Frontier Capital Management Co. LLC lifted its position in Pure Storage by 835.2% in the 4th quarter. Frontier Capital Management Co. LLC now owns 1,078,454 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $38,458,000 after acquiring an additional 963,140 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nikko Asset Management Americas Inc. lifted its position in Pure Storage by 83.9% in the 4th quarter. Nikko Asset Management Americas Inc. now owns 2,068,255 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $73,733,000 after acquiring an additional 943,850 shares in the last quarter. 83.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc engages in the provision of data storage and management technologies, products, and services in the United States and internationally. Its Purity software is shared across its products and provides enterprise-class data services, such as always-on data reduction, data protection, and encryption, as well as storage protocols, including block, file, and object.