Tran Capital Management L.P. Sells 2,499 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Tran Capital Management L.P. reduced its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 18.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 11,001 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 2,499 shares during the quarter. Tran Capital Management L.P.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,277,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Aviso Wealth Management boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Aviso Wealth Management now owns 6,149 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $792,000 after buying an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. Quarry LP grew its stake in NetApp by 11.7% in the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 876 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $113,000 after purchasing an additional 92 shares during the period. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 22.3% during the 4th quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 549 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $64,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 3.5% during the 3rd quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 3,492 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $431,000 after purchasing an additional 118 shares during the period. Finally, Ballentine Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 2,756 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $340,000 after buying an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have weighed in on NTAP. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Bank of America upped their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, January 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Down 0.2 %

NTAP opened at $126.00 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $83.80 and a one year high of $135.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $121.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $122.69.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its 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. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were given 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 1.65%. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total value of $1,045,755.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 271,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,375,824.46. The trade was a 3.04 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,123,351 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.