NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) to Issue Dividend Increase – $0.52 Per Share

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 30th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, July 5th will be given a dividend of 0.52 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, July 24th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.60%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 5th. This is a positive change from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50.

NetApp has raised its dividend by an average of 1.4% annually over the last three years. NetApp has a payout ratio of 28.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect NetApp to earn $5.96 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 34.9%.

NetApp Trading Up 0.3 %

NetApp stock opened at $130.26 on Thursday. NetApp has a 12 month low of $70.82 and a 12 month high of $131.02. The stock has a market cap of $26.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.26 and a beta of 1.27. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $116.61 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $102.04. The company has a quick ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.48 by $0.32. NetApp had a return on equity of 114.54% and a net margin of 15.73%. The company had revenue of $1.67 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.20 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

NetApp declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback plan on Thursday, May 30th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the data storage provider to buy up to 4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Susquehanna increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $138.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $95.00 to $125.00 in a research report on Friday, May 31st. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on NetApp from $100.00 to $116.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $117.81.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.46, for a total transaction of $2,848,120.00. Following the transaction, the president now owns 64,789 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,387,583.94. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $127.24, for a total value of $954,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 193,369 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $24,604,271.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, June 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.46, for a total transaction of $2,848,120.00. Following the transaction, the president now owns 64,789 shares in the company, valued at $8,387,583.94. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 42,205 shares of company stock valued at $5,193,529. Company insiders own 0.37% 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.