Franklin Resources Inc. Has $54.34 Million Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Franklin Resources Inc. grew its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 8.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 468,136 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 34,520 shares during the quarter. Franklin Resources Inc.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $54,341,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in NetApp by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,069,617,000 after acquiring an additional 429,343 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after purchasing an additional 199,384 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $738,280,000 after buying an additional 453,324 shares in the last quarter. Beutel Goodman & Co Ltd. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Beutel Goodman & Co Ltd. now owns 2,887,795 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $335,215,000 after buying an additional 12,919 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at about $306,440,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on the company. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Barclays dropped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Citigroup decreased their target price on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $110.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $129.07.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $76.10 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $105.85 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $116.14. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $74.83 and a 12 month high of $135.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.31.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, April 4th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.73%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.52%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Friday, March 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total value of $1,775,594.40. Following the completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,075,309.20. The trade was a 62.28 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares in the company, valued at $1,402,063.95. This trade represents a 3.62 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 50,627 shares of company stock worth $5,498,573. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.