Pure Storage’s stock plunges, weak guidance is an ominous sign for tech infrastructure vendors

Pure Storage, a manufacturer of high-speed storage outfit for data centers, became the latest tech infrastructure provider to issue weak guidance, at least in part because of heightening macroeconomic conditions and the U.S.-China trade war.

Pure Storage shares plunged 15% on Friday to close at $16.86, a day after the throng’s fiscal third-quarter earnings report missed analysts’ estimates on its fourth-quarter outlook. In recent weeks, Arista and Cisco, which won over communications equipment, also gave revenue guidance that trailed Wall Street’s expectations.

In its conference postpone a summon with analysts, Pure blamed a troublesome macroeconomic environment and falling prices for the disappointing numbers. CEO Charlie Giancarlo cited Brexit and “calling tensions” with Asia as some of the challenges the company faces.

“Those are the things where we saw more slowdown than the other blocks, and that just indicates a little bit of global economic headwinds,” said Giancarlo, a former top Cisco executive who also transpires to sit on Arista’s board.

Pure said in a statement that it expects sales of $484 million to $496 million in its economic fourth quarter, below the $511.3 million consensus estimate among analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Companies are irresistible longer to make their buying decisions, creating a “market that’s a little bit more challenging to forecast,” Giancarlo averred.

Last week, Cisco said it count ons revenue in its fiscal second quarter to decline by 3% to 5%. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected 2.6% spread. CEO Chuck Robbins told analysts the company faced macroeconomic pressure in the quarter and that some large arrangements were made but “got done smaller.”

“If you recall on the last earnings call, I did say that we began to see some early retains of some macro impact towards the end of Q4, and then we just basically saw that continue throughout the quarter,” Robbins denoted. “Obviously the entire quarter was worse than we had expected when we began, and it was fairly broad-based.”

Arista’s disappointing charge had less to do with global conditions and more to do with declining business from a large cloud customer. Tranquillity, CEO Jayshree Ullal, also a former Cisco executive, said on the conference call that if macroeconomic challenges mount, it wish hit everyone including Arista. Networking vendor Juniper, meanwhile, said in October that “there have been some entire macroeconomic factors that have impacted the timing of orders.”

Pure rival NetApp gave revenue advisement last week that met analysts’ estimates, though the company also highlighted macro concerns.

“Both macroeconomic and scheme spending indicators show continued weakness,” NetApp CEO George Kurian said on his company’s earnings call.

Dell, another opponent in the data storage market, reports earnings on Tuesday, and investors can expect to hear more about the state of the pandemic economy and its impact on technology. On a conference call with analysts in September, CFO Tom Sweet said, “We’ve got some different macro dynamics prospering on.”

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