Needham & Company LLC Reiterates Buy Rating for Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG)

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG - Get Free Report)'s stock had its "buy" rating reiterated by Needham & Company LLC in a research report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $75.00 price target on the technology company's stock. Needham & Company LLC's price target would indicate a potential upside of 40.82% from the company's previous close.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on PSTG. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $60.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday, May 23rd. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $40.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and set a $66.00 price objective (up previously from $53.00) on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Thursday, May 29th. Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $77.00 to $73.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $61.00 to $57.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Pure Storage has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $69.95.

Pure Storage Stock Performance

Shares of PSTG stock traded up $1.68 on Friday, hitting $53.26. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,677,712 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,943,805. The stock's 50 day moving average is $50.82 and its 200-day moving average is $55.94. Pure Storage has a fifty-two week low of $34.51 and a fifty-two week high of $73.67. The company has a market capitalization of $17.41 billion, a PE ratio of 143.95, a PEG ratio of 4.92 and a beta of 1.05.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 28th. The technology company reported $0.29 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.04. Pure Storage had a net margin of 3.93% and a return on equity of 13.98%. The business had revenue of $778.49 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $770.03 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.32 earnings per share. Pure Storage's revenue was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Pure Storage will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Pure Storage

In other Pure Storage news, Director John Francis Murphy sold 11,234 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $55.13, for a total transaction of $619,330.42. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 21,930 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,209,000.90. This represents a 33.87% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CRO Dan Fitzsimons sold 6,977 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.91, for a total transaction of $285,429.07. Following the sale, the executive now directly owns 90,223 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,691,022.93. This represents a 7.18% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 125,083 shares of company stock worth $6,460,576 in the last quarter. 5.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Pure Storage

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Pure Storage by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 33,443,732 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $2,054,448,000 after purchasing an additional 615,931 shares during the period. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. increased its position in Pure Storage by 25.9% during the 1st quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 9,075,944 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $401,793,000 after purchasing an additional 1,868,782 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Pure Storage by 25.4% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,748,553 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $413,982,000 after purchasing an additional 1,366,458 shares during the period. Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its position in Pure Storage by 3.0% during the 4th quarter. Champlain Investment Partners LLC now owns 5,921,392 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $363,751,000 after purchasing an additional 174,449 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its position in Pure Storage by 18.8% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,162,081 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $255,677,000 after purchasing an additional 657,175 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.42% of the company's stock.

Pure Storage Company Profile

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.