Philip James Wealth Mangement LLC Purchases Shares of 16,956 NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Philip James Wealth Mangement LLC bought a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 16,956 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,094,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 46.1% in the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,754,000 after buying an additional 5,273 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the first quarter worth about $473,000. Russell Investments Group Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 60.5% in the first quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 527,064 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $55,355,000 after buying an additional 198,627 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI raised its holdings in NetApp by 221.9% in the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 301,699 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $32,731,000 after purchasing an additional 207,968 shares during the period. Finally, Sei Investments Co. raised its holdings in NetApp by 63.9% in the 1st quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 343,218 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $36,025,000 after purchasing an additional 133,813 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at $36,922,233.58. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,369,172 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. Bank of America upped their price target on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI upped their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. Barclays upped their price target on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Loop Capital raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $129.06.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded up $1.35 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $124.18. The company had a trading volume of 98,582 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,809,310. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $75.32 and a twelve month high of $135.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The stock has a market cap of $25.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.33 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $120.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $120.98.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.45 by $0.11. NetApp had a return on equity of 121.41% and a net margin of 17.01%. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.53 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.84 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 4th were given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 40.63%.

NetApp Company Profile

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.