Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Shares Sold by Franklin Resources Inc.

Franklin Resources Inc. trimmed its holdings in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) by 82.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 59,053 shares of the company’s stock after selling 282,471 shares during the quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. owned approximately 0.06% of Elastic worth $5,851,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Elastic by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,352,108 shares of the company’s stock valued at $926,607,000 after buying an additional 168,483 shares during the last quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA grew its stake in Elastic by 15.6% in the 4th quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 3,429,756 shares of the company’s stock valued at $339,820,000 after acquiring an additional 462,974 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Elastic by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,437,243 shares of the company’s stock valued at $110,323,000 after purchasing an additional 31,663 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Elastic by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,394,336 shares of the company’s stock valued at $107,058,000 after purchasing an additional 50,355 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in Elastic in the 4th quarter valued at about $102,485,000. 97.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on ESTC shares. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of Elastic from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Cantor Fitzgerald assumed coverage on shares of Elastic in a research report on Friday, January 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $108.00 price objective for the company. Guggenheim increased their price objective on shares of Elastic from $130.00 to $136.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Elastic from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Wedbush downgraded shares of Elastic from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $130.09.

Elastic Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ESTC opened at $83.29 on Thursday. Elastic has a fifty-two week low of $69.00 and a fifty-two week high of $123.96. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $100.20 and its 200 day simple moving average is $96.43. 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 $8.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 151.44 and a beta of 1.19.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Elastic news, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 5,000 shares of Elastic stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.64, for a total transaction of $513,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 371,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $38,140,100.24. The trade was a 1.33 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CTO Shay Banon sold 25,668 shares of Elastic stock in a transaction dated 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 in the company, valued at approximately $271,033,118.73. This trade represents a 1.05 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 198,304 shares of company stock valued at $20,847,452 over the last three months. Company insiders own 15.90% of the company’s stock.

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.