NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $135.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective increased by Citigroup from $130.00 to $135.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a neutral rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on NTAP. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. UBS Group raised 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, Bank of America raised their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $121.87 and a 200 day simple moving average of $122.69. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.49, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp has a one year low of $77.56 and a one year high of $135.45.

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

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 given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. This trade represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Hollencrest Capital Management bought a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at approximately $32,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. bought a new position in NetApp in the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Finally, Robbins Farley bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $44,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.