Everpure Leads S&P 500 Tech Gains After Index Debut

Shares of Everpure (P), the data-storage company formerly known as Pure Storage, closed 11% higher on Thursday, Sept. 24, the largest gain in the S&P 500 that day. The stock had been up as much as 18% during the session. Everpure joined the index earlier in September.

The move followed an analyst day at which the company set out longer-term financial targets that Wall Street received well.

What Everpure laid out

The headline figure was revenue growth. Everpure said it expects revenue to grow 39% to 45% in the fiscal year ending in January 2028, above the consensus analyst forecast. Among the sources of that growth are what the company calls "new" revenue opportunities, including products for hyperscalers, the large cloud providers that run their own data centers at enormous scale.

The company also sized its market. It estimated that the total addressable market for all-flash storage and related technologies could almost quadruple to more than $200 billion by 2030.

How analysts read the shift

Analysts at three firms responded positively, each focusing on a different part of the plan.

TD Cowen's Krish Sankar called it "more than an analyst day." "We think Everpure is entering a different phase as a company," he wrote. He pointed to deals that are getting larger and to a pitch that now reaches beyond storage into areas such as data architecture. Hyperscalers, he said, are "becoming a core growth engine" that signals "a broader organizational inflection."

Evercore ISI's Amit Daryanani focused on profitability. "Notably, Everpure laid out a framework in which growth remains durable off a larger base and margins expand on mix rather than core pricing," he wrote. In other words, the company expects operating margins, the share of revenue left after operating expenses, to rise because more of its sales will come from higher-margin business such as hyperscalers, not because it charges existing customers more.

Morgan Stanley's Erik Woodring said that before the event, investors had been questioning whether Everpure's recent growth could last. "We think those concerns should quickly reverse," he wrote.

The 'rule of 60' benchmark

Woodring also pointed to a profitability-and-growth threshold. If Everpure reaches "rule of 60" status next calendar year, meaning its revenue growth rate and operating margin add up to 60% or more, it would join a short list. Only four other software companies are expected to reach that level, he noted: Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Palantir Technologies (PLTR) and AppLovin (APP).

The measure is a stricter version of the "rule of 40," a common yardstick for software companies that weighs how fast a business is growing against how much profit it keeps. A company that clears 60% is combining fast growth with high margins at the same time.

Revenue against the 39% to 45% target

The analyst day set targets; the next quarterly reports will show whether the business is tracking toward them.

• Revenue growth against the 39% to 45% range for the fiscal year ending January 2028.
• The share of revenue coming from hyperscalers, which analysts expect to drive both growth and margins.
• Operating margins, and whether they expand through business mix as Daryanani described.
• Progress toward the "rule of 60" threshold in calendar 2027.