NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Receives $129.06 Average PT from Brokerages

Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the seventeen ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, eleven have given a hold recommendation and five have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $129.06.

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Citigroup upped their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Susquehanna reaffirmed a “positive” rating and set a $155.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Loop Capital raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at $36,922,233.58. This represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. This represents a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,369,172 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its position in NetApp by 48.3% during the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,375,366 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $249,307,000 after purchasing an additional 773,773 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 59.6% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $211,637,000 after buying an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of 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 buying an additional 453,324 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the second quarter valued at about $56,313,000. Finally, APG Asset Management US Inc. bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the second quarter valued at about $48,074,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Trading Up 1.8 %

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $119.34 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $121.26 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $122.23. NetApp has a 12 month low of $77.08 and a 12 month high of $135.01. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.44 billion, a PE ratio of 23.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.45 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 121.41% and a net margin of 17.01%. The firm’s revenue was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.84 EPS. On average, analysts expect that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 4th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.74%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 40.62%.

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.