Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) Short Interest Up 24.4% in March

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

Elastic Stock Performance

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

Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by ($0.48). The business had revenue of $382.08 million during 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%. On average, analysts anticipate that Elastic will post -0.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Elastic news, CRO Mark Eugene Dodds sold 2,755 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.77, for a total value of $250,071.35. Following the sale, the executive now owns 96,484 shares in the company, valued at $8,757,852.68. This trade represents a 2.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.64, for a total transaction of $513,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 371,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $38,140,100.24. This trade represents a 1.33 % 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 three months. Insiders own 15.90% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Elastic

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of ESTC. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Elastic by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 9,352,108 shares of the company’s stock valued at $926,607,000 after purchasing an additional 168,483 shares during the period. Sylebra Capital LLC increased its stake in shares of Elastic by 62.6% during the fourth quarter. Sylebra Capital LLC now owns 4,561,462 shares of the company’s stock valued at $451,950,000 after buying an additional 1,756,842 shares during the period. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA raised its holdings in shares of Elastic by 15.6% during the fourth quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 3,429,756 shares of the company’s stock valued at $339,820,000 after acquiring an additional 462,974 shares in the last quarter. Atreides Management LP lifted its stake in Elastic by 57.2% in the third quarter. Atreides Management LP now owns 1,687,791 shares of the company’s stock worth $129,555,000 after acquiring an additional 614,309 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Elastic by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,439,412 shares of the company’s stock valued at $142,663,000 after acquiring an additional 45,076 shares in the last quarter. 97.03% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage on shares of Elastic in a research report on Friday, January 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $108.00 target price on the stock. Piper Sandler lifted 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. Truist Financial reduced their price objective on shares of Elastic from $145.00 to $140.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Elastic from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their target price on Elastic from $140.00 to $148.00 and gave the stock 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 assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $130.74.

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.