Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd Buys New Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd purchased a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 3,328 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $386,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Private Advisor Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 25.4% in the third quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 3,166 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $391,000 after acquiring an additional 642 shares during the period. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. boosted its stake in NetApp by 6.8% during the 3rd quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 3,296 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $407,000 after purchasing an additional 209 shares during the period. Farther Finance Advisors LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 25.9% during the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 796 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $98,000 after purchasing an additional 164 shares during the period. Conning Inc. grew its position in NetApp by 234.9% during the 3rd quarter. Conning Inc. now owns 6,081 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $751,000 after purchasing an additional 4,265 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 111.0% in the third quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 12,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,565,000 after purchasing an additional 6,666 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

NetApp Trading Down 4.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $95.73 on Tuesday. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $95.18 and a 12-month high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $19.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 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. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $119.41 and its 200 day simple moving average is $121.54.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.17%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.52%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total transaction of $1,056,465.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at $34,774,104.78. The trade was a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total transaction of $54,579.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,553 shares in the company, valued at $1,395,024.75. This represents a 3.77 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on NTAP. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Northland Securities boosted their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $110.00 price objective (down from $120.00) on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday. Finally, Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $130.40.

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.