Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD Reduces Stock Holdings in Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG)

Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD cut its holdings in shares of Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 24.7% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,072,739 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 1,992,549 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD’s holdings in Pure Storage were worth $315,723,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its position in shares of Pure Storage by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 54,073 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,928,000 after acquiring an additional 242 shares during the last quarter. DecisionPoint Financial LLC grew its position in shares of Pure Storage by 53.3% during the first quarter. DecisionPoint Financial LLC now owns 1,150 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $61,000 after acquiring an additional 400 shares during the last quarter. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Pure Storage by 6.8% during the first quarter. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC now owns 6,340 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $330,000 after acquiring an additional 405 shares during the last quarter. Lindbrook Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Pure Storage by 295.6% during the first quarter. Lindbrook Capital LLC now owns 633 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $33,000 after acquiring an additional 473 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise purchased a new position in shares of Pure Storage during the first quarter worth approximately $25,000. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Pure Storage news, CFO P. Kevan Krysler sold 14,296 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $63.79, for a total transaction of $911,941.84. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 518,623 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,082,961.17. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.50, for a total value of $5,950,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 900,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $53,550,000. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO P. Kevan Krysler sold 14,296 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $63.79, for a total transaction of $911,941.84. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 518,623 shares in the company, valued at $33,082,961.17. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 119,114 shares of company stock valued at $7,174,052 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 6.00% of the company’s stock.

Pure Storage Trading Up 1.5 %

Shares of Pure Storage stock traded up $0.85 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $58.27. 1,986,928 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,628,705. Pure Storage, Inc. has a twelve month low of $31.00 and a twelve month high of $70.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 208.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.87 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $63.35 and a 200 day simple moving average of $53.62. The company has a current ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 29th. The technology company reported ($0.02) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $681.37 million. Research analysts forecast that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.47 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Bank of America lifted their price objective 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. KeyCorp lifted their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $64.00 to $79.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $60.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Pure Storage from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $60.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, Northland Securities lowered shares of Pure Storage from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $58.00 to $68.00 in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $69.11.

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.