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

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, August 28th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, October 4th will be paid a dividend of 0.52 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, October 23rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%.

NetApp has increased its dividend by an average of 1.4% per year over the last three years. NetApp has a payout ratio of 28.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect NetApp to earn $5.96 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 34.9%.

NetApp Trading Down 7.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded down $9.69 during trading on Thursday, hitting $122.22. The company had a trading volume of 1,456,733 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,895,198. The stock has a market cap of $25.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.96 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74, a current ratio of 1.19 and a quick ratio of 1.15. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $127.67 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $113.33. NetApp has a one year low of $70.82 and a one year high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.24 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.15 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 15.73% and a return on equity of 114.54%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.84 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.47 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, May 30th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the data storage provider to buy up to 4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $127.24, for a total value of $954,300.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 193,369 shares in the company, valued at $24,604,271.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $133.07, for a total transaction of $60,147.64. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,886 shares in the company, valued at $1,581,670.02. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $127.24, for a total value of $954,300.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 193,369 shares in the company, valued at approximately $24,604,271.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 41,786 shares of company stock valued at $5,395,146 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the subject of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $106.00 to $127.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Citigroup lifted their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. TD Cowen lifted their price target on NetApp from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price target on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Thursday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $127.67.

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.