UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC Sells 168,639 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC cut its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,765,937 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 168,639 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC owned 1.35% of NetApp worth $341,621,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of NTAP. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its holdings 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 worth $359,517,000 after purchasing an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $309,811,000 after buying an additional 82,378 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 12.8% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $223,806,000 after acquiring an additional 196,952 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in NetApp by 59.6% in 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its stake in NetApp by 38.5% during the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,270,000 after acquiring an additional 342,415 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Northland Securities raised their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. UBS Group upped their price objective on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Evercore ISI upped their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $137.40.

NetApp Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.64 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.62 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The business’s 50 day moving average is $122.37 and its two-hundred day moving average is $123.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.54, a PEG ratio of 2.93 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 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current 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 dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

NetApp 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.