Nicholas Company Inc. Raises Stock Holdings in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC)

Nicholas Company Inc. increased its stake in shares of Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) by 3.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 227,624 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,578 shares during the quarter. Nicholas Company Inc. owned approximately 0.22% of Elastic worth $22,553,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in ESTC. FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of Elastic by 25.6% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,475,297 shares of the company’s stock worth $420,284,000 after purchasing an additional 1,115,750 shares during the last quarter. Atreides Management LP increased its position in Elastic by 57.2% during 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 in the last quarter. JAT Capital Mgmt LP increased its position in Elastic by 601.4% during the 3rd quarter. JAT Capital Mgmt LP now owns 465,549 shares of the company’s stock valued at $35,736,000 after buying an additional 399,175 shares in the last quarter. Thematics Asset Management increased its position in Elastic by 463.3% during the 3rd quarter. Thematics Asset Management now owns 444,012 shares of the company’s stock valued at $34,082,000 after buying an additional 365,192 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. increased its position in Elastic by 256.3% during the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 341,524 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,387,000 after buying an additional 245,680 shares in the last quarter. 97.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on Elastic from $98.00 to $132.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Elastic from $100.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Piper Sandler upped their target price on Elastic from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group upped their target price on Elastic from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, DA Davidson upped their target price on Elastic from $75.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Elastic has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $131.52.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 7,017 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $108.12, for a total value of $758,678.04. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 395,326 shares in the company, valued at $42,742,647.12. This trade represents a 1.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CRO Mark Eugene Dodds sold 2,755 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.77, for a total value of $250,071.35. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive now owns 96,484 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,757,852.68. This trade represents a 2.78 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 200,321 shares of company stock worth $21,092,930. 15.90% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Elastic Stock Performance

Shares of ESTC stock opened at $95.00 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $9.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 172.73 and a beta of 1.20. The business’s 50 day moving average is $105.68 and its two-hundred day moving average is $94.91. The company has a current ratio of 1.99, a quick ratio of 1.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. Elastic has a 12-month low of $69.00 and a 12-month high of $123.96.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by ($0.48). The business 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%. Analysts expect that Elastic will post -0.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Elastic Company 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.