Inspire Investing LLC Purchases 15,995 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Inspire Investing LLC boosted its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 78.2% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 36,439 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 15,995 shares during the period. Inspire Investing LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $4,501,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. UMB Bank n.a. grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 11.8% in the 2nd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 784 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $101,000 after acquiring an additional 83 shares in the last quarter. Aviso Wealth Management grew its holdings 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 valued at $792,000 after acquiring an additional 83 shares in the last quarter. Waldron Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Waldron Private Wealth LLC now owns 2,255 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $290,000 after acquiring an additional 92 shares in the last quarter. Quarry LP grew its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 92 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 0.5% in the 2nd quarter. Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co now owns 18,920 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,437,000 after acquiring an additional 95 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Bank of America raised their price objective on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.06.

NetApp Trading Up 1.6 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $126.93 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $123.03 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $118.77. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The company has a market capitalization of $26.12 billion, a PE ratio of 27.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.77 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $70.82 and a 12-month high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.45 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.84 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 4th will be given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.64%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 44.83%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.36, for a total transaction of $1,108,060.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 314,274 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $40,968,758.64. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,405,297. Corporate insiders own 0.37% 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.