Wells Fargo & Company Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Stock

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) had its price target increased by Wells Fargo & Company from $100.00 to $135.00 in a research note released on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. Wells Fargo & Company currently has an overweight rating on the stock.

Several other equities analysts also recently issued reports on ESTC. Oppenheimer raised their price target on shares of Elastic from $125.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday. Wedbush upgraded Elastic to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price objective on Elastic from $125.00 to $110.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. TD Cowen reduced their target price on Elastic from $110.00 to $80.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 30th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of Elastic in a report on Friday. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $126.33.

Elastic Stock Performance

NYSE:ESTC opened at $111.45 on Friday. Elastic has a twelve month low of $69.00 and a twelve month high of $136.06. The company has a quick ratio of 1.91, a current ratio of 1.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $81.78 and its 200 day simple moving average is $96.91. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.45 billion, a PE ratio of 202.69 and a beta of 0.94.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported $0.35 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $344.67 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned ($0.35) EPS. Elastic’s revenue was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Elastic will post -0.92 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Elastic

In related news, Director Paul R. Auvil III bought 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were bought at an average price of $74.25 per share, for a total transaction of $1,485,000.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now directly owns 22,627 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,680,054.75. This trade represents a 761.32 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 19,649 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.25, for a total value of $1,380,342.25. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 432,648 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $30,393,522. This trade represents a 4.34 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 37,406 shares of company stock worth $2,627,772. 15.90% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Elastic

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ESTC. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of Elastic by 25.6% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,475,297 shares of the company’s stock valued at $420,284,000 after purchasing an additional 1,115,750 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in Elastic in the 2nd quarter worth about $248,335,000. Atreides Management LP increased its stake in Elastic by 57.2% in the 3rd quarter. Atreides Management LP now owns 1,687,791 shares of the company’s stock valued at $129,555,000 after buying an additional 614,309 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Elastic by 2.3% in the 3rd 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 grew its holdings in shares of Elastic by 3.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,394,336 shares of the company’s stock valued at $107,058,000 after acquiring an additional 50,355 shares in the last quarter. 97.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.