Traders Purchase Large Volume of Elastic Call Options (NYSE:ESTC)

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) was the target of some unusual options trading on Friday. Investors bought 4,489 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 178% compared to the typical volume of 1,613 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on ESTC. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of Elastic in a report on Wednesday. Truist Financial lifted their target price on shares of Elastic from $105.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Wedbush upgraded shares of Elastic to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Baird R W lowered Elastic from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, August 30th. Finally, William Blair raised Elastic from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Elastic currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $122.00.

Elastic Price Performance

NYSE ESTC opened at $107.94 on Friday. Elastic has a twelve month low of $69.00 and a twelve month high of $136.06. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.09 billion, a PE ratio of 196.42 and a beta of 0.94. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $81.13 and a 200 day simple moving average of $97.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 1.91 and a current ratio of 1.91.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 29th. The company reported $0.35 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.25 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $347.42 million during 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 business’s quarterly revenue was up 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned ($0.35) EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Elastic will post -0.92 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Janesh Moorjani sold 6,941 shares of the firm’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 $487,605.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 195,550 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,737,387.50. This trade represents a 3.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Paul R. Auvil III purchased 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 acquisition, the director now directly owns 22,627 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,680,054.75. This represents a 761.32 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 37,406 shares of company stock valued at $2,627,772 over the last three months. Insiders own 15.90% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Elastic

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Russell Investments Group Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Elastic by 993.0% in the 1st quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 17,236 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,728,000 after buying an additional 15,659 shares in the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Elastic by 24.6% during the first quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 2,232 shares of the company’s stock valued at $224,000 after purchasing an additional 441 shares in the last quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. grew its stake 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 bought a new position in shares of Elastic during the 1st quarter worth approximately $5,780,000. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its position in Elastic by 44.1% in the first 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 period. 97.03% of the stock is currently owned by 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.