Lingohr Asset Management GmbH Invests $526,000 in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Lingohr Asset Management GmbH bought a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 4,537 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $526,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Natixis Advisors LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 66.0% in the third quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 72,137 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $8,910,000 after purchasing an additional 28,693 shares in the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised its stake in NetApp by 0.6% in the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 92,817 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $11,463,000 after purchasing an additional 592 shares in the last quarter. Quest Partners LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 24.5% in the third quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 9,461 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,169,000 after purchasing an additional 1,864 shares in the last quarter. Caprock Group LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 19.6% in the third quarter. Caprock Group LLC now owns 9,348 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,155,000 after purchasing an additional 1,530 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Prospera Financial Services Inc acquired a new position in NetApp in the third quarter valued at about $744,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $110.00 target price (down previously from $120.00) on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Northland Securities upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays lowered their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 28th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.07.

NetApp Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $93.53 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $19.03 billion, a PE ratio of 17.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $89.88 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $113.44 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $118.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.22%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.52%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total transaction of $1,045,755.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 271,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,375,824.46. The trade was a 3.04 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 52,931 shares of company stock worth $6,252,759. Insiders own 0.47% 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.