NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Releases Earnings Results, Beats Estimates By $0.09 EPS

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09, RTT News reports. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis.

NetApp Trading Up 2.7 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $126.75 on Friday. NetApp has a 52-week low of $77.46 and a 52-week high of $135.01. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $121.77 and a 200-day moving average of $122.39. 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 market cap of $25.96 billion, a PE ratio of 24.76, a PEG ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.64%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 40.63%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the subject of several analyst reports. Evercore ISI increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, UBS Group raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $129.06.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This represents a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.