Choreo LLC Buys 618 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Choreo LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 16.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,336 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 618 shares during the period. Choreo LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $505,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in NetApp by 2.0% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after purchasing an additional 199,384 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 9.2% during the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $156,268,000 after buying an additional 113,360 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its holdings in NetApp by 276.9% in the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,431,000 after buying an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Finally, Barclays PLC increased its stake in NetApp by 31.4% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 784,339 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $96,873,000 after buying an additional 187,638 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $119.56 on Wednesday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $120.98 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $122.02. NetApp, Inc. 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. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.98, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.23 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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 issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. 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 payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total transaction of $1,509,250.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 123,243 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,880,359.82. This represents a 9.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 64,110 shares of company stock worth $7,632,601 over the last three months. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on NTAP shares. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, December 16th. Bank of America lifted their price objective 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. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.53.

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.