Allianz Asset Management GmbH Decreases Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Allianz Asset Management GmbH decreased its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 1.8% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,804,030 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 33,820 shares during the quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH’s holdings in NetApp were worth $209,412,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. KBC Group NV increased its position in NetApp by 276.9% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,431,000 after buying an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in NetApp by 8.2% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $738,280,000 after buying an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. increased its position in NetApp by 38.5% during the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,270,000 after buying an additional 342,415 shares during the period. Unigestion Holding SA increased its position in NetApp by 926.1% during the third quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 283,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $35,022,000 after buying an additional 256,028 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama increased its position in NetApp by 546.8% during the fourth quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 289,504 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $33,606,000 after buying an additional 244,746 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Up 0.0 %

NetApp stock opened at $124.55 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 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $25.32 billion, a PE ratio of 22.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.23. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $120.05 and its 200 day moving average price is $121.84.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total transaction of $54,579.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,553 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,395,024.75. The trade was a 3.77 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction 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 company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total value of $1,011,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 266,765 shares in the company, valued at $31,755,705.60. This represents a 3.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have commented on the company. Bank of America raised NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research report on Wednesday. Citigroup lifted their price target on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $137.33.

NetApp Company Profile

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.