Nicholas Company Inc. Grows Stock Position in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC)

Nicholas Company Inc. lifted its stake in Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) by 3.9% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 227,624 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,578 shares during the period. Nicholas Company Inc.’s holdings in Elastic were worth $22,553,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Picton Mahoney Asset Management acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $4,804,000. LBP AM SA increased its holdings in shares of Elastic by 181.4% in the fourth quarter. LBP AM SA now owns 153,084 shares of the company’s stock valued at $15,168,000 after purchasing an additional 98,679 shares during the last quarter. Swiss National Bank increased its holdings in shares of Elastic by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 171,800 shares of the company’s stock valued at $17,022,000 after purchasing an additional 3,000 shares during the last quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,004,000. Finally, Saturna Capital Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Elastic in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $251,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.03% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently commented on ESTC shares. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Elastic from $135.00 to $150.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Elastic from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Elastic in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Guggenheim raised their target price on Elastic from $130.00 to $136.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on Elastic from $98.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Elastic has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $131.52.

Elastic Trading Up 3.6 %

NYSE:ESTC opened at $95.00 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $9.92 billion, a PE ratio of 172.73 and a beta of 1.20. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $105.68 and a 200 day moving average price of $94.91. Elastic has a 12-month low of $69.00 and a 12-month high of $123.96. 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 (NYSE:ESTC) last released its earnings results 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 company had revenue of $382.08 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $368.85 million. Elastic had a net margin of 4.39% and a negative return on equity of 13.20%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Elastic will post -0.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Elastic

In other Elastic news, CRO Mark Eugene Dodds sold 2,755 shares of Elastic stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.77, for a total transaction of $250,071.35. Following the completion of the sale, the executive now directly owns 96,484 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,757,852.68. The trade was a 2.78 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CTO Shay Banon sold 25,668 shares of Elastic stock in a transaction dated Sunday, March 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $112.53, for a total value of $2,888,420.04. Following the sale, 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. Over the last three months, insiders sold 200,321 shares of company stock worth $21,092,930. Company insiders own 15.90% of the company’s stock.

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.