KBC Group NV Boosts Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

KBC Group NV grew its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 236,407 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 6,170 shares during the period. KBC Group NV owned 0.12% of NetApp worth $29,198,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new position in NetApp during the second quarter valued at $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the third quarter worth $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at $32,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 1st quarter valued at $28,000. Finally, Crewe Advisors LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the 1st quarter worth $35,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at NetApp

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 transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,369,172. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently commented on NTAP. Bank of America boosted their price objective on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Loop Capital raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research report on Wednesday. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $129.06.

NetApp Trading Down 1.3 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $118.07 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $24.18 billion, a PE ratio of 23.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $76.41 and a 1 year high of $135.01. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $121.08 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $121.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, October 4th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.76%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.