Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Sees Large Volume Increase on Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) saw strong trading volume on Friday after Baird R W upgraded the stock from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating. 3,937,339 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 202% from the previous session’s volume of 1,302,963 shares.The stock last traded at $109.41 and had previously closed at $94.13.

ESTC has been the topic of several other reports. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Elastic from $110.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. Robert W. Baird upgraded Elastic from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $95.00 to $135.00 in a research note on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on shares of Elastic from $99.00 to $113.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Elastic from $100.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on Elastic from $155.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 28th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $122.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO Janesh Moorjani sold 6,941 shares of Elastic stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $70.25, for a total transaction of $487,605.25. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 195,550 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,737,387.50. The trade was a 3.43 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Paul R. Auvil III bought 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was purchased at an average price of $74.25 per share, with a total value of $1,485,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 22,627 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,680,054.75. The trade was a 761.32 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 37,406 shares of company stock worth $2,627,772. Company insiders own 15.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Elastic

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in Elastic by 25.6% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,475,297 shares of the company’s stock valued at $420,284,000 after acquiring an additional 1,115,750 shares during the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in shares of Elastic in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $248,335,000. Atreides Management LP increased its position in shares of Elastic by 57.2% during the third quarter. Atreides Management LP now owns 1,687,791 shares of the company’s stock worth $129,555,000 after buying an additional 614,309 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in Elastic by 2.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,437,243 shares of the company’s stock worth $110,323,000 after buying an additional 31,663 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Elastic by 3.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,394,336 shares of the company’s stock worth $107,058,000 after buying an additional 50,355 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.03% of the company’s stock.

Elastic Trading Up 14.8 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a current ratio of 1.91 and a quick ratio of 1.91. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $81.78 and its 200-day moving average is $97.04. The firm has a market cap of $11.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 196.42 and a beta of 0.94.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.10. Elastic had a negative return on equity of 13.54% and a net margin of 4.39%. The company had revenue of $347.42 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $344.67 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.35) EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Elastic will post -0.92 earnings per share for the current year.

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.