Oppenheimer Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Stock

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) had its price objective raised by equities research analysts at Oppenheimer from $125.00 to $140.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the stock. Oppenheimer’s price objective points to a potential upside of 29.59% from the company’s current price.

A number of other brokerages have also recently weighed in on ESTC. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on Elastic from $110.00 to $80.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of Elastic in a research report on Wednesday. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of Elastic from $94.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday. Barclays upped their target price on Elastic from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Elastic from $145.00 to $100.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 30th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $122.00.

Elastic Trading Up 14.8 %

ESTC opened at $108.03 on Friday. Elastic has a 52 week low of $69.00 and a 52 week 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 stock’s fifty day moving average is $81.78 and its two-hundred day moving average is $97.04. The company has a market capitalization of $11.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 196.42 and a beta of 0.94.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.25 by $0.10. Elastic had a net margin of 4.39% and a negative return on equity of 13.54%. The company had revenue of $347.42 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $344.67 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.35) earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Elastic will post -0.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Elastic

In related news, CTO Shay Banon sold 2,666 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.25, for a total transaction of $187,286.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer now directly owns 4,543,190 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $319,159,097.50. This trade represents a 0.06 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Paul R. Auvil III bought 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was bought at an average cost of $74.25 per share, for a total transaction of $1,485,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 22,627 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,680,054.75. The trade was a 761.32 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 37,406 shares of company stock valued at $2,627,772. 15.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Russell Investments Group Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of Elastic by 993.0% in 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 period. ProShare Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Elastic by 24.6% in the first quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 2,232 shares of the company’s stock valued at $224,000 after acquiring an additional 441 shares in the last quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Elastic by 12.7% in the 1st quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,053 shares of the company’s stock valued at $106,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares during the period. Toronto Dominion Bank acquired a new position in shares of Elastic in the 1st quarter valued at $5,780,000. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC raised its stake in Elastic by 44.1% during the 1st quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 3,851 shares of the company’s stock valued at $385,000 after acquiring an additional 1,179 shares during the last quarter. 97.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.