Janney Montgomery Scott LLC Has $1.62 Million Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lifted its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 10.0% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 13,940 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,267 shares during the quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,618,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Algert Global LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 26.9% during the second quarter. Algert Global LLC now owns 4,108 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $529,000 after buying an additional 870 shares during the last quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its holdings in NetApp by 3.5% during the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 6,007 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $773,000 after acquiring an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 16.1% in the 2nd quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 21,417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,759,000 after buying an additional 2,974 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 28.2% during the 2nd quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 36,190 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $4,661,000 after purchasing an additional 7,960 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sanctuary Advisors LLC acquired a new position in NetApp during the second quarter worth approximately $566,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. 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 research note on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays raised their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup upped their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities raised their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the transaction, the director now owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. This trade represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 51,610 shares of company stock worth $6,123,351. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Trading Down 1.9 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $119.72 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $24.34 billion, a PE ratio of 22.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $83.80 and a 12 month high of $135.45. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $121.21 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $122.21.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share 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 analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. Research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.74%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.