Short Interest in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Grows By 24.4%

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) saw a large increase in short interest in March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,360,000 shares, an increase of 24.4% from the February 28th total of 2,700,000 shares. Currently, 3.7% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,390,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.4 days.

Insider Activity

In other news, CTO Shay Banon sold 140,129 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $106.68, for a total value of $14,948,961.72. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer now directly owns 2,254,978 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $240,561,053.04. The trade was a 5.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 18,735 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.77, for a total value of $1,700,575.95. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 376,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,183,165.07. This represents a 4.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 198,304 shares of company stock worth $20,847,452. 15.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its stake in Elastic by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 81,703 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,095,000 after acquiring an additional 247 shares during the period. 111 Capital acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic during the 4th quarter worth $500,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH acquired a new position in Elastic in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,558,000. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in Elastic in the fourth quarter valued at about $456,000. Finally, Infinitum Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in Elastic during the fourth quarter worth about $6,936,000. 97.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Elastic Stock Performance

Shares of ESTC traded up $0.14 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $91.48. The company had a trading volume of 1,561,547 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,329,311. The firm has a market cap of $9.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 166.33 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a quick ratio of 1.99, a current ratio of 1.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The business has a fifty day moving average of $104.65 and a 200-day moving average of $96.47. Elastic has a 12 month low of $69.00 and a 12 month high of $123.96.

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by ($0.48). The firm had revenue of $382.08 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $368.85 million. Elastic had a negative return on equity of 13.20% and a net margin of 4.39%. Equities analysts anticipate that Elastic will post -0.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ESTC has been the topic of a number of research reports. Scotiabank reduced their target price on shares of Elastic from $140.00 to $137.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 27th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Elastic from $130.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Cantor Fitzgerald began coverage on Elastic in a research note on Friday, January 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $108.00 price objective for the company. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Elastic from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 target price on shares of Elastic in a report on Tuesday, February 25th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $130.74.

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.