NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $135.00 at Citigroup

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its target price hoisted by equities researchers at Citigroup from $130.00 to $135.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a “neutral” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Citigroup’s target price indicates a potential upside of 10.35% from the company’s current price.

Several other analysts also recently issued reports on NTAP. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. TD Cowen raised their target price on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Evercore ISI boosted their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. NetApp has a twelve month low of $77.56 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.49, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $121.87 and its 200 day simple moving average is $122.59.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 119.68% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,017,276. This trade represents a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Bessemer Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 46.1% in the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,754,000 after acquiring an additional 5,273 shares during the period. Intech Investment Management LLC grew its position in NetApp by 8.9% in the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 4.7% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $24,057,000 after purchasing an additional 8,305 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 3.5% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $309,811,000 after buying an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 132.1% during the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 28,230 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,963,000 after buying an additional 16,066 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.