Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Reduces Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lessened its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 26,504 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 587 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $3,077,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in NetApp by 59.6% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $211,637,000 after acquiring an additional 613,583 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in NetApp by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after acquiring an additional 453,324 shares in the last quarter. APG Asset Management US Inc. purchased a new stake in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at about $48,074,000. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew 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 valued at $152,270,000 after acquiring an additional 342,415 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Unigestion Holding SA grew its stake in NetApp by 926.1% during the 3rd quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 283,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $35,022,000 after acquiring an additional 256,028 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Oppenheimer started coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 43,110 shares of company stock valued at $5,077,596 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Up 1.3 %

NetApp stock opened at $123.67 on Wednesday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.80 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $120.89 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.71. The company has a market capitalization of $25.14 billion, a PE ratio of 22.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.23 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared 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 is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

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.