Great Diamond Partners LLC Cuts Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Great Diamond Partners LLC decreased its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 85.9% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 1,966 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 12,013 shares during the quarter. Great Diamond Partners LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $228,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Narus Financial Partners LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 11.8% during the 4th quarter. Narus Financial Partners LLC now owns 2,965 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $344,000 after buying an additional 312 shares in the last quarter. Strategic Advocates LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 96.4% in the fourth quarter. Strategic Advocates LLC now owns 16,214 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,882,000 after purchasing an additional 7,960 shares during the period. Mediolanum International Funds Ltd grew its stake in NetApp by 130.1% during the 4th quarter. Mediolanum International Funds Ltd now owns 143,129 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $16,632,000 after purchasing an additional 80,922 shares in the last quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN increased its holdings in NetApp by 25.7% during the 4th quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 4,389 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $509,000 after purchasing an additional 897 shares during the period. Finally, Foster & Motley Inc. raised its position in NetApp by 3.3% in the 4th quarter. Foster & Motley Inc. now owns 40,496 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $4,701,000 after purchasing an additional 1,283 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on NTAP shares. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

NetApp Trading Down 0.3 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.10 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $24.82 billion, a PE ratio of 22.44, a P/E/G ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.80 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $121.22 and its 200 day moving average price is $122.37. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.23 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid 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 dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

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.