Pitcairn Co. Has $996,000 Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Pitcairn Co. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 18.3% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 9,486 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,466 shares during the period. Pitcairn Co.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $996,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at $232,502,000. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its position in NetApp by 57.5% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 5,643,780 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $497,556,000 after buying an additional 2,059,574 shares during the last quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC boosted its position in NetApp by 254.8% in the 1st quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 2,304,512 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $241,905,000 after buying an additional 1,654,942 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc boosted its position in NetApp by 127.0% in the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,698,277 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $149,720,000 after buying an additional 950,204 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wedge Capital Management L L P NC bought a new position in NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at $74,257,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. Argus increased their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 5th. TD Cowen raised their price target on NetApp from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Citigroup raised their price target on NetApp from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 21st. Susquehanna lifted their target price on NetApp from $138.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on NetApp from $130.00 to $138.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $117.81.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP stock traded down $0.14 during trading on Thursday, hitting $125.56. The company had a trading volume of 1,442,638 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,961,352. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a current ratio of 1.19. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.23 and a beta of 1.27. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $124.39 and its 200 day moving average price is $106.57. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $70.82 and a one year high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.48 by $0.32. The business had revenue of $1.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 114.54% and a net margin of 15.73%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.20 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 5th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This is an increase from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.66%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, July 5th. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 44.83%.

NetApp declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase program on Thursday, May 30th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the data storage provider to purchase up to 4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.36, for a total transaction of $1,108,060.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 314,274 shares in the company, valued at $40,968,758.64. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.36, for a total transaction of $1,108,060.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 314,274 shares in the company, valued at $40,968,758.64. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $127.24, for a total transaction of $954,300.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 193,369 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,604,271.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 41,786 shares of company stock worth $5,395,146 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

About NetApp

NetApp, Inc provides cloud-led and data-centric services to manage and share data on-premises, and private and public clouds worldwide. It operates in two segments, Hybrid Cloud and Public Could. The company offers intelligent data management software, such as NetApp ONTAP, NetApp Snapshot, NetApp SnapCenter Backup Management, NetApp SnapMirror Data Replication, NetApp SnapLock Data Compliance, and storage infrastructure solutions, including NetApp All-Flash FAS series, NetApp Fabric Attached Storage, NetApp E/EF series, and NetApp StorageGRID.