Principal Financial Group Inc. Has $64.98 Million Stock Holdings in Pure Storage, Inc. $PSTG

Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE:PSTG) by 1.8% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 775,265 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 13,762 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned 0.24% of Pure Storage worth $64,975,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Pure Storage during the 2nd quarter worth about $225,203,000. Atreides Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Pure Storage in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $204,552,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Pure Storage by 112.9% in the second quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC now owns 4,926,836 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $283,687,000 after buying an additional 2,612,300 shares during the last quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. raised its position in Pure Storage by 1,560.9% during the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 1,343,658 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $77,368,000 after acquiring an additional 1,262,758 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in Pure Storage by 158.4% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,938,125 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $110,473,000 after acquiring an additional 1,188,126 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.42% of the company’s stock.

Pure Storage Price Performance

Shares of PSTG opened at $68.40 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $22.58 billion, a PE ratio of 180.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.47 and a beta of 1.27. Pure Storage, Inc. has a one year low of $34.51 and a one year high of $100.59. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $71.98 and its 200 day moving average price is $76.05.

Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, September 9th. The technology company reported $0.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Pure Storage had a net margin of 3.74% and a return on equity of 10.60%. The company had revenue of $763.77 million during the quarter. Analysts anticipate that Pure Storage, Inc. will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have commented on PSTG shares. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Pure Storage from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on shares of Pure Storage in a research note on Monday, November 17th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $120.00 price objective for the company. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $100.00 target price on shares of Pure Storage in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Evercore ISI restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Pure Storage in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Lake Street Capital boosted their price target on Pure Storage from $80.00 to $92.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $95.26.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Pure Storage news, insider John Colgrove sold 100,000 shares of Pure Storage stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.31, for a total value of $7,131,000.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Ajay Singh sold 7,178 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.14, for a total value of $481,930.92. Following the transaction, the insider owned 215,091 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,441,209.74. This trade represents a 3.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 207,178 shares of company stock worth $16,771,931 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 5.60% of the company’s stock.

Pure Storage Profile

Pure Storage, Inc (NYSE: PSTG) is a technology company that designs and sells data storage hardware and software for enterprise and cloud environments. The company is best known for its all-flash storage arrays that are engineered to deliver high performance, low latency and simplified management compared with traditional disk-based systems. Its product portfolio includes purpose-built arrays and software aimed at transactional databases, virtualized infrastructures, analytics and large-scale file/object workloads.

Key product and software offerings include the FlashArray family for block storage and FlashBlade for file and object workloads, together with Purity, the company’s storage operating environment.