NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Purchases $254,800.00 in Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Anders Gustafsson bought 2,800 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 27th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $91.00 per share, for a total transaction of $254,800.00. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 6,348 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $577,668. This represents a 78.92 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

NetApp Trading Up 1.1 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $90.49 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $18.41 billion, a PE ratio of 16.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.31. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $86.40 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $107.74 and its two-hundred day moving average is $116.68.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.30%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 38.52%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $3,069,617,000 after acquiring an additional 429,343 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in NetApp by 2.0% in 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. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 14.5% during the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $815,402,000 after purchasing an additional 888,671 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings 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 buying an additional 453,324 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 20.4% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,123,228 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $362,544,000 after buying an additional 529,471 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently commented on NTAP shares. Loop Capital dropped their price objective on NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Barclays dropped their price target on NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 28th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.07.

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.