Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Sells 3,333 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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 is available at this hyperlink.

NetApp Stock Up 2.7 %

NetApp stock opened at $126.75 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $77.46 and a fifty-two week high of $135.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.96. The company has a market capitalization of $25.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.76, a PEG ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $121.77 and a 200-day simple moving average of $122.39.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 121.41% and a net margin of 17.01%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 40.63%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Citigroup lifted their price objective on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Loop Capital raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. UBS Group lifted their price objective on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Bank of America boosted their target price on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $129.06.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Unigestion Holding SA raised its stake in NetApp by 926.1% during the 3rd quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 283,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $35,022,000 after acquiring an additional 256,028 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. raised its stake in NetApp by 14.9% during the 3rd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 502,438 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $62,056,000 after acquiring an additional 65,223 shares during the last quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 11.2% during the 3rd quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC now owns 9,306 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,149,000 after acquiring an additional 934 shares during the last quarter. Chiron Investment Management LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 93.2% during the 3rd quarter. Chiron Investment Management LLC now owns 11,106 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,372,000 after acquiring an additional 5,357 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Coldstream Capital Management Inc. raised its stake in NetApp by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,080 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $380,000 after acquiring an additional 166 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About NetApp

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.