Treasurer of the State of North Carolina Acquires 688 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Treasurer of the State of North Carolina raised its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 0.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 133,898 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 688 shares during the period. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina’s holdings in NetApp were worth $15,543,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at $306,440,000. Boston Partners increased its holdings in NetApp by 53.9% in the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $241,867,000 after purchasing an additional 729,394 shares during the last quarter. KBC Group NV lifted its stake in NetApp by 276.9% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after buying an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $64,683,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 20.4% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,123,228 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $362,544,000 after buying an additional 529,471 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total value of $1,775,594.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares in the company, valued at $1,075,309.20. This trade represents a 62.28 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total value of $54,579.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,553 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,395,024.75. This represents a 3.77 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 50,176 shares of company stock valued at $5,445,901 over the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

NetApp Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $82.64 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $16.81 billion, a PE ratio of 15.19, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.31. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $100.27 and its 200 day simple moving average is $114.19. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $71.84 and a 52-week high of $135.45.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.52%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.52%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on NTAP. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Citigroup decreased their price target on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $110.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 3rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average 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.