NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Thomas Michael Nevens Sells 3,333 Shares

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

NetApp Trading Up 1.0 %

NetApp stock opened at $123.45 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.96. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $121.56 and a 200 day simple moving average of $122.36. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.11, a PEG ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $77.30 and a 52 week high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.45 by $0.11. NetApp had a return on equity of 121.41% and a net margin of 17.01%. The business had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.84 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 4th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.68%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 40.63%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in NetApp by 59.6% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $211,637,000 after acquiring an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 8.2% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after buying an additional 453,324 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. bought a new stake in NetApp during the second quarter worth $56,313,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 17.5% in the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $359,517,000 after buying an additional 416,233 shares during the last quarter. Finally, APG Asset Management US Inc. bought a new position in NetApp during the second quarter valued at about $48,074,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on NTAP shares. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and set a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Barclays increased their price target on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.06.

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.