Why Shares of Pure Storage Jumped on Friday

What happened

Shares of data cloud platform Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG) jumped as much as 14.4% on Friday morning, following the company's second-quarter earnings release for fiscal 2018. At the time of this writing, the stock is up about 13.5%.

Investor optimism toward Pure Storage stock on Friday is likely a reflection of the company's better-than-expected second-quarter revenue and adjusted EPS. With $224.5 million of quarterly revenue and an adjusted loss per share of $0.11, the company exceeded consensus analyst estimates for revenue of $218.6 million and adjusted loss per share of $0.14.

In addition, investors are likely pleased with Pure Storage's move to raise its full-year fiscal 2018 guidance to a range of $985 million to $1.025 billion.

So what

Pure Storage's results reflect the company's strong growth and improving profitability. Second-quarter revenue was up 38% year over year, and Pure Storage's adjusted loss per share narrowed by $0.05 compared to the year-ago quarter.

"Our Q2 results highlight solid topline growth and continued improvement in operating leverage," said Pure Storage CFO Tim Riitters in the company's second-quarter press release.

Along with its second-quarter results, Pure Storage also announced it has named Charles Giancarlo as its new CEO, effective immediately.

"Mr. Giancarlo previously served in senior executive roles at Silver Lake Partners and Cisco Systems, Inc.," said Pure Storage's press release about the CEO change on Thursday. "Mr. Giancarlo succeeds Scott Dietzen who is stepping down from his role as CEO and has been appointed Chairman of the Board."

Now what

Going forward, Riitters said Pure Storage is "laser-focused" on topping $1 billion in revenue this year, as well as achieving profitability "in the near future."

As far as the new CEO, Pure Storage believes Giancarlo is the best fit for scaling the company to a "multi-billion dollar global leader in data infrastructure and solutions."

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Daniel Sparks has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.