NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Plans $0.52 Quarterly Dividend

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 21st,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.52 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, January 22nd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%.

NetApp has raised its dividend payment by an average of 1.4% annually over the last three years. NetApp has a dividend payout ratio of 27.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect NetApp to earn $6.18 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 33.7%.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP traded up $3.23 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $126.68. The company had a trading volume of 4,385,619 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,823,943. The stock has a market cap of $25.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.11, a PEG ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $121.56 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $122.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91. NetApp has a 12 month low of $77.46 and a 12 month high of $135.01.

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 net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.23 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was 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. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on NTAP. Evercore ISI lifted their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. Bank of America boosted their price target on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reaffirmed a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $129.06.

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.