NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Downgraded by StockNews.com to Hold

StockNews.com cut shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday.

Other analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities upped their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Susquehanna cut NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $155.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday. Finally, Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $137.53.

NetApp Trading Down 2.8 %

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $119.56 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.31 billion, a PE ratio of 21.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $120.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $122.02. NetApp has a 52 week low of $83.80 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (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 business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that NetApp will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.74%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,017,276. The trade was a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The stock was 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 $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 64,110 shares of company stock valued at $7,632,601. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Boston Partners lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 53.9% in the 4th quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $241,867,000 after acquiring an additional 729,394 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 276.9% in the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after purchasing an additional 654,626 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter worth $64,683,000. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 8.2% during the third 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 during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $3,069,617,000 after buying an additional 429,343 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% 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.