Pure Storage Inc. (NYSE: PSTG) stock jumped 1.48% on Friday to $29.52 against a previous-day closing price of $29.09. With 1.46 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 3.79 million shares. During the session, the Computer Hardware company that operates in wider Technology sector, reached to the highest price of $29.53 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $29.03. The 52-week range on PSTG shows that it touched its highest point at $36.71 and its lowest point at $18.75 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $36.18. Beta for the stock currently stands at 1.37.
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Price Performance and Earnings:
Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of PSTG was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 5.81%, but this was up by 15.86% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -1.60% while six-month performance rose 11.82%. The stock gained 45.42% in the past year, while it has lost -9.31% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for PSTG yields -0.25 with Next year EPS estimates of 1.12. For the next quarter, that number is 0.22. This implies an EPS growth rate of 52.40% for this year and 19.04% for next year.
Float and Shares Shorts:
At present, 295.84 million PSTG shares are outstanding with a float of 278.05 million shares on hand for trading. On Jul 14, 2022, short shares totaled 19.47 million, which was 6.58% higher than short shares on Jun 14, 2022. In addition to Mr. Charles H. Giancarlo as the firm’s Chairman & CEO, Mr. John Colgrove serves as its Founder, Chief Visionary Officer & Director.
Institutional Ownership:
Through their ownership of 84.54% of PSTG’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company. Other institutions hold 9.92% of PSTG, in contrast to 42.62% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 40.19%. As the largest shareholder in PSTG with 10.87% of the stake, Fidelity Management & Research Co holds 32,178,574 shares worth 32,178,574. A second-largest stockholder of PSTG, The Vanguard Group, Inc., holds 27,000,458 shares, controlling over 9.12% of the firm’s shares. T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. is the third largest shareholder in PSTG, holding 18,321,760 shares or 6.19% stake. With a 3.80% stake in PSTG, the Fidelity Growth Company Fund is the largest stakeholder. A total of 11,232,660 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The T Rowe Price Science & Technology, which owns about 3.46% of PSTG stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 10,233,600 shares valued at 263.11 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index holds 2.83% of the stake in PSTG, owning 8,363,087 shares worth 215.01 million.
Analysts Ratings:
Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for PSTG since 20 analysts follow the stock currently. There are 14 analysts who recommend BUY ratings, while 0 suggest SELL ratings. Of the remaining analysts, 4 believe that the stock is worth HOLDING, 2 give it an OVERWEIGHT rating, and 0 thinks that it’s UNDERWEIGHT. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With PSTG analysts setting a high price target of $44.00 and a low target of $29.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $36.17. Based on these targets, PSTG could surge 49.05% to reach the target high and fall by -1.76% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 22.53% from current levels.
EPS: Estimates vs Actual
It is also common to use earnings estimates to evaluate a firm’s growth potential and to determine trading strategy. PSTG will report FY 2023 earnings on 03/02/2023. Analysts have provided yearly estimates in a range of $1.03 being high and $0.84 being low. For PSTG, this leads to a yearly average estimate of $0.94. The earnings surprise of a firm occurs when the actual results change from the consensus earnings estimate. Pure Storage Inc. surprised analysts by $0.21 when it reported $0.25 EPS against a consensus estimate of $0.04. The surprise factor in the prior quarter was $0.10. Based on analyst estimates, the high estimate for the next quarter is $0.27 and the low estimate is $0.19. The average estimate for the next quarter is thus $0.22.
Summary of Insider Activity:
Insiders traded PSTG stock several times over the past three months with 8 Buys and 5 Sells. In these transactions, 72,776 shares were bought while 109,297 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 18 while that of sell transactions has risen to 21 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 1,533,994 while 721,807 shares were sold.
