Eastern Bank Boosts Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Eastern Bank lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 58.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,397 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 517 shares during the quarter. Eastern Bank’s holdings in NetApp were worth $162,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new position in NetApp during the second quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $27,000. Hershey Financial Advisers LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $45,000. True Wealth Design LLC boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 2,833.3% during the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP purchased a new stake in NetApp in the third quarter valued at approximately $44,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on NTAP. Bank of America lifted their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer started coverage on shares of NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Northland Securities boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Up 1.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $116.69 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $121.02 and a 200-day simple moving average of $122.97. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $83.80 and a twelve month high of $135.45. 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 company has a market capitalization of $23.72 billion, a PE ratio of 21.45, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.78%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total value of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. This represents a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the sale, the president now owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. This trade represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,149,531 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.