NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Sells $2,529,780.00 in Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This trade represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link.

NetApp Stock Down 0.1 %

NTAP stock opened at $115.92 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $121.15 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $123.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.31, a PEG ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $83.62 and a one year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.79%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Intech Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $37,301,000 after buying an additional 24,651 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. grew its position in NetApp by 20.9% during the third quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,225,000 after acquiring an additional 7,318 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in NetApp by 4.7% during the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $24,057,000 after acquiring an additional 8,305 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth about $4,059,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 202.1% in the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 266,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,886,000 after purchasing an additional 178,135 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently commented on NTAP. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup boosted their price target on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their target price on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

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.