Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Shares Purchased by Lazard Asset Management LLC

Lazard Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) by 32.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 23,198 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,694 shares during the quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Elastic were worth $2,296,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ESTC. SBI Securities Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic in the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Elastic in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Venturi Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Elastic by 793.3% in the fourth quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 268 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 238 shares during the last quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Elastic by 126.4% during the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 283 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Global Retirement Partners LLC lifted its position in Elastic by 1,065.2% during the fourth quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 536 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,000 after buying an additional 490 shares in the last quarter. 97.03% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ESTC has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Barclays cut their target price on Elastic from $138.00 to $124.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on shares of Elastic from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Scotiabank dropped their price target on shares of Elastic from $140.00 to $137.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 27th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Elastic from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Guggenheim upped their price objective on Elastic from $130.00 to $136.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Elastic has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $126.87.

Elastic Stock Up 0.1%

Elastic stock opened at $92.25 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.63 billion, a P/E ratio of 167.73 and a beta of 1.20. The company has a current ratio of 1.99, a quick ratio of 1.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. Elastic has a twelve month low of $69.00 and a twelve month high of $123.96. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $86.56 and its 200-day simple moving average is $97.25.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.64, for a total transaction of $513,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 371,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $38,140,100.24. This trade represents a 1.33% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CTO Shay Banon sold 25,668 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Sunday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $112.53, for a total value of $2,888,420.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer now directly owns 2,408,541 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $271,033,118.73. This trade represents a 1.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 198,304 shares of company stock worth $20,847,452 over the last 90 days. 15.90% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.