NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Sells $397,393.59 in Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the director now owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. This trade represents a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

NetApp Stock Down 3.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $121.87 and its 200-day moving average is $122.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.96. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $77.56 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a PE ratio of 22.49, a P/E/G ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 119.68%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Unigestion Holding SA raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 926.1% in the third quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 283,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $35,022,000 after buying an additional 256,028 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 14.9% in the third quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 502,438 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $62,056,000 after acquiring an additional 65,223 shares during the last quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 11.2% during the third quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC now owns 9,306 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,149,000 after purchasing an additional 934 shares in the last quarter. Chiron Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 93.2% during the third quarter. Chiron Investment Management LLC now owns 11,106 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,372,000 after purchasing an additional 5,357 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Coldstream Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 5.7% in the third quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,080 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $380,000 after purchasing an additional 166 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. UBS Group upped their price target on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

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.