Principal Financial Group Inc. Acquires 241 Shares of Elastic (NYSE:ESTC)

Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) by 3.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 7,299 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 241 shares during the quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Elastic were worth $723,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Private Advisor Group LLC bought a new position in Elastic in the 3rd quarter worth about $211,000. Van ECK Associates Corp acquired a new position in shares of Elastic during the third quarter worth $2,540,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Elastic by 7.0% during the 3rd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,063 shares of the company’s stock valued at $235,000 after buying an additional 201 shares in the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp purchased a new position in shares of Elastic in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $15,623,000. Finally, Assetmark Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Elastic by 28,132.1% in the third quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 7,905 shares of the company’s stock worth $607,000 after buying an additional 7,877 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 97.03% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ESTC has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Elastic from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on Elastic from $110.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Guggenheim raised their price objective on Elastic from $130.00 to $136.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Barclays upped their target price on Elastic from $105.00 to $138.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 25th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price target on shares of Elastic from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $131.52.

Elastic Stock Down 9.3 %

Shares of NYSE:ESTC opened at $99.41 on Friday. Elastic has a fifty-two week low of $69.00 and a fifty-two week high of $123.96. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $106.40 and its 200 day moving average price is $95.53. The company has a quick ratio of 1.99, a current ratio of 1.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The stock has a market cap of $10.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 180.75 and a beta of 1.20.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.47 by ($0.48). The firm had revenue of $382.08 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $368.85 million. Elastic had a negative return on equity of 13.20% and a net margin of 4.39%. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Elastic will post -0.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CTO Shay Banon sold 25,668 shares of the stock in a transaction on Sunday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $112.53, for a total value of $2,888,420.04. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer now directly owns 2,408,541 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $271,033,118.73. This trade represents a 1.05 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 7,017 shares of Elastic stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $108.12, for a total transaction of $758,678.04. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 395,326 shares in the company, valued at $42,742,647.12. This represents a 1.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 172,814 shares of company stock worth $18,596,060. 15.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Elastic Profile

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.