Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO Sells 8,500 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total transaction of $1,045,755.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 271,282 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,375,824.46. This trade represents a 3.04 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

George Kurian also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, December 16th, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total transaction of $1,056,465.00.
• On Monday, November 18th, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $126.00 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $121.41 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.69. 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 cap of $25.62 billion, a PE ratio of 23.16, a P/E/G ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $83.80 and a 1 year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during 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 business’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.23 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. KBC Group NV grew its holdings in NetApp by 276.9% during the 4th 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 last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 59.6% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $211,637,000 after acquiring an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in 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 worth $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares in the last quarter. APG Asset Management US Inc. acquired a new position in NetApp in the 2nd quarter valued at about $48,074,000. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 38.5% in the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $152,270,000 after purchasing an additional 342,415 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on NTAP. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target 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.