Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Shares Gap Up – Time to Buy?

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) gapped up prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $88.58, but opened at $92.30. Elastic shares last traded at $92.29, with a volume of 326,803 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have commented on ESTC shares. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Elastic from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, November 15th. Wedbush raised shares of Elastic to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of Elastic from $131.00 to $100.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 30th. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Elastic from $135.00 to $95.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on shares of Elastic from $145.00 to $100.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Elastic presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $103.43.

Elastic Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 1.91 and a current ratio of 1.91. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $80.71 and its 200-day simple moving average is $97.05. The company has a market cap of $9.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 160.89 and a beta of 0.94.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 net margin of 4.62% and a negative return on equity of 17.54%. The company’s revenue was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted ($0.35) EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Elastic will post -0.92 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, CTO Shay Banon sold 2,666 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 9th. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at approximately $319,159,097.50. The trade was a 0.06 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Paul R. Auvil III purchased 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were acquired at an average price of $74.25 per share, for a total transaction of $1,485,000.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 22,627 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 37,406 shares of company stock valued at $2,627,772. 15.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Elastic

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ESTC. 1832 Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in Elastic in the second quarter valued at approximately $248,335,000. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Elastic by 25.6% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,475,297 shares of the company’s stock valued at $420,284,000 after buying an additional 1,115,750 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. purchased a new position in shares of Elastic in the second quarter valued at $102,169,000. Atreides Management LP boosted its stake in shares of Elastic by 57.2% during the third quarter. Atreides Management LP now owns 1,687,791 shares of the company’s stock valued at $129,555,000 after acquiring an additional 614,309 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Elastic by 32,630.2% during the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 615,655 shares of the company’s stock valued at $70,129,000 after acquiring an additional 613,774 shares during the last quarter. 97.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.