JPMorgan Chase & Co. Lowers Stake in Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC)

Key Points

• JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced its stake in Elastic N.V. by 16.6% during the first quarter, now holding 2.54 million shares valued at approximately $226.87 million.
• Despite recent insider sales and price target reductions by multiple analysts, Elastic remains popular among institutional investors, with 97.03% of its shares owned by this group.
• Elastic recently reported earnings of $0.47 per share for the last quarter, surpassing expectations, along with revenue growth of 15.9% year-over-year.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. lessened its stake in shares of Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC - Free Report) by 16.6% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,546,216 shares of the company's stock after selling 507,257 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. owned about 2.44% of Elastic worth $226,868,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its holdings in shares of Elastic by 5,437.6% during the first quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 2,288,128 shares of the company's stock valued at $203,872,000 after buying an additional 2,246,808 shares during the last quarter. Sylebra Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of Elastic by 62.6% during the fourth quarter. Sylebra Capital LLC now owns 4,561,462 shares of the company's stock valued at $451,950,000 after buying an additional 1,756,842 shares during the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP grew its holdings in shares of Elastic by 554.9% during the fourth quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 641,041 shares of the company's stock valued at $63,514,000 after buying an additional 543,155 shares during the last quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Elastic during the fourth quarter valued at $46,031,000. Finally, Soma Equity Partners LP grew its holdings in shares of Elastic by 61.5% during the fourth quarter. Soma Equity Partners LP now owns 989,349 shares of the company's stock valued at $98,025,000 after buying an additional 376,660 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 97.03% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity at Elastic

In related news, CRO Mark Eugene Dodds sold 2,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $83.50, for a total transaction of $208,750.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive owned 172,321 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $14,388,803.50. This represents a 1.43% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Carolyn Herzog sold 5,702 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $86.91, for a total transaction of $495,560.82. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 93,985 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $8,168,236.35. This represents a 5.72% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 50,913 shares of company stock worth $4,416,324 in the last 90 days. 15.90% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Elastic Price Performance

Shares of ESTC traded up $0.99 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $77.41. 2,099,507 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,393,696. Elastic N.V. has a 1-year low of $69.00 and a 1-year high of $118.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 1.92 and a current ratio of 1.92. The company has a 50 day moving average of $83.26 and a 200-day moving average of $90.22. The stock has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -73.72 and a beta of 1.07.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 29th. The company reported $0.47 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.37 by $0.10. Elastic had a negative net margin of 7.29% and a negative return on equity of 4.46%. The company had revenue of $388.43 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $380.61 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.21 EPS. Elastic's revenue was up 15.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Elastic N.V. will post -0.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on ESTC. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Elastic from $150.00 to $120.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of Elastic from $124.00 to $105.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Rosenblatt Securities dropped their price objective on shares of Elastic from $140.00 to $130.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their price target on shares of Elastic from $109.00 to $92.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Finally, Scotiabank lowered their price target on shares of Elastic from $137.00 to $95.00 and set a "sector outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $110.60.

About Elastic

Elastic N.V., a data analytics company, delivers solutions designed to run in public or private clouds in multi-cloud environments. It primarily offers Elastic Stack, a set of software products that ingest and store data from various sources and formats, as well as performs search, analysis, and visualization on that data.