Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Sees Large Drop in Short Interest

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest during the month of October. As of October 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,390,000 shares, a decline of 9.8% from the September 30th total of 3,760,000 shares. Currently, 4.0% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 1,320,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.6 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ESTC has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on Elastic from $145.00 to $100.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Scotiabank cut their price target on Elastic from $135.00 to $92.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 30th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on Elastic from $135.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 30th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Elastic from $120.00 to $98.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Finally, Oppenheimer decreased their target price on Elastic from $150.00 to $125.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $103.71.

Elastic Price Performance

ESTC stock traded up $0.74 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $80.97. 187,843 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,283,761. The company has a market cap of $8.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 145.87 and a beta of 0.94. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $80.72 and its 200 day moving average is $98.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a current ratio of 1.91 and a quick ratio of 1.91. Elastic has a 12-month low of $69.00 and a 12-month high of $136.06.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $347.42 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $344.67 million. Elastic had a negative return on equity of 17.54% and a net margin of 4.62%. Elastic’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted ($0.35) earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Elastic will post -0.92 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Elastic

In related news, CTO Shay Banon sold 2,666 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief technology officer now directly owns 4,543,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $319,159,097.50. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In related news, CTO Shay Banon sold 2,666 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.25, for a total transaction of $187,286.50. Following the sale, the chief technology officer now directly owns 4,543,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $319,159,097.50. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 19,649 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $70.25, for a total value of $1,380,342.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 432,648 shares in the company, valued at approximately $30,393,522. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 37,406 shares of company stock worth $2,627,772. 15.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Elastic

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Nordea Investment Management AB purchased a new position in shares of Elastic in the first quarter valued at approximately $3,104,000. Toronto Dominion Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic in the first quarter valued at approximately $5,780,000. Quantbot Technologies LP increased its holdings in shares of Elastic by 165.2% in the first quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 12,921 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,295,000 after purchasing an additional 8,048 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Elastic by 737.7% in the first quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. now owns 17,617 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,766,000 after purchasing an additional 15,514 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Interval Partners LP acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic in the first quarter valued at approximately $1,704,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.03% 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.