Principal Financial Group Inc. Has $64.98 Million Position in Pure Storage, Inc. $PSTG

Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 775,265 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 13,762 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Pure Storage were worth $64,975,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its position in shares of Pure Storage by 8.3% in the 3rd quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,598 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $134,000 after acquiring an additional 122 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd increased its position in shares of Pure Storage by 0.3% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 43,756 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,667,000 after purchasing an additional 152 shares during the period. Global Retirement Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 11.8% in the third quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 1,530 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $128,000 after purchasing an additional 162 shares in the last quarter. Outfitters Financial LLC raised its stake in shares of Pure Storage by 1.3% in the third quarter. Outfitters Financial LLC now owns 13,860 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,162,000 after purchasing an additional 175 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Penserra Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Pure Storage by 11.8% in the second quarter. Penserra Capital Management LLC now owns 1,666 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $95,000 after purchasing an additional 176 shares during the period. 83.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Pure Storage Stock Performance

PSTG opened at $68.40 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $71.98 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $76.05. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.58 billion, a PE ratio of 180.01, a P/E/G ratio of 5.47 and a beta of 1.27. Pure Storage, Inc. has a 52 week low of $34.51 and a 52 week high of $100.59.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, September 9th. The technology company reported $0.44 earnings per share for the quarter. Pure Storage had a return on equity of 10.60% and a net margin of 3.74%.The company had revenue of $763.77 million for the quarter. Equities analysts forecast that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Pure Storage from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Evercore ISI reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. Tigress Financial set a $105.00 price objective on Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $83.00 target price on Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $95.26.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Ajay Singh sold 7,178 shares of Pure Storage stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.14, for a total transaction of $481,930.92. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 215,091 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,441,209.74. This trade represents a 3.23% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total value of $7,131,000.00. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 207,178 shares of company stock valued at $16,771,931. Company insiders own 5.60% of the company’s stock.

Pure Storage Company Profile

Pure Storage, Inc (NYSE: PSTG) is a technology company that designs and sells data storage hardware and software for enterprise and cloud environments. The company is best known for its all-flash storage arrays that are engineered to deliver high performance, low latency and simplified management compared with traditional disk-based systems. Its product portfolio includes purpose-built arrays and software aimed at transactional databases, virtualized infrastructures, analytics and large-scale file/object workloads.

Key product and software offerings include the FlashArray family for block storage and FlashBlade for file and object workloads, together with Purity, the company’s storage operating environment.