Principal Financial Group Inc. Reduces Holdings in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC)

Principal Financial Group Inc. reduced its position in shares of Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) by 90.7% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 7,058 shares of the company’s stock after selling 68,506 shares during the quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Elastic were worth $542,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ESTC. Interval Partners LP acquired a new position in shares of Elastic in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,704,000. Russell Investments Group Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Elastic by 993.0% during the first quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 17,236 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,728,000 after purchasing an additional 15,659 shares during the last quarter. WD Rutherford LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $422,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. bought a new stake in shares of Elastic in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $102,169,000. Finally, Daventry Group LP lifted its holdings in shares of Elastic by 8.6% in the 2nd quarter. Daventry Group LP now owns 316,975 shares of the company’s stock worth $36,107,000 after purchasing an additional 25,008 shares during the last quarter. 97.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Elastic Stock Up 14.8 %

Shares of Elastic stock opened at $108.03 on Monday. 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 company’s 50 day moving average is $81.78 and its 200 day moving average is $96.91. The company 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 posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $347.42 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $344.67 million. Elastic had a negative return on equity of 13.54% and a net margin of 4.39%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.35) EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Elastic will post -0.92 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Elastic in a report on Friday. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Elastic from $100.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Elastic from $100.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday. William Blair raised Elastic from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Finally, TD Cowen reduced their price objective on shares of Elastic from $110.00 to $80.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $122.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CTO Shay Banon sold 2,666 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.25, for a total value of $187,286.50. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer now owns 4,543,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $319,159,097.50. This represents a 0.06 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Paul R. Auvil III acquired 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $74.25 per share, with a total value of $1,485,000.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now 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 disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 37,406 shares of company stock valued at $2,627,772 in the last quarter. 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.