NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Announces $0.52 Quarterly Dividend

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 27th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be paid a dividend of 0.52 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, April 23rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.32%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th.

NetApp has raised its dividend payment by an average of 1.3% per year over the last three years. NetApp has a dividend payout ratio of 24.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect NetApp to earn $6.43 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 32.3%.

NetApp Trading Up 1.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $89.49 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $108.45 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $116.86. NetApp has a 52-week low of $86.40 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.45, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.24.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Anders Gustafsson purchased 2,800 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 27th. The shares were bought at an average price of $91.00 per share, with a total value of $254,800.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 6,348 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $577,668. This represents a 78.92 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total value of $1,775,594.40. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,075,309.20. This represents a 62.28 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 50,627 shares of company stock worth $5,498,573. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on NTAP. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $110.00 price objective (down previously from $120.00) on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, February 28th. TD Cowen decreased their price target on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 28th. Susquehanna cut shares of NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday, February 10th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.07.

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.