Wells Fargo & Company Lowers NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target to $130.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target decreased by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $140.00 to $130.00 in a report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “equal weight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Wells Fargo & Company‘s price target would indicate a potential upside of 5.38% from the company’s previous close.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Bank of America raised shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their target price for the company from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research note on Wednesday. Barclays upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Susquehanna downgraded NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.33.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $123.36 on Thursday. NetApp has a 1 year low of $83.80 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The company has a market cap of $25.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.78, a P/E/G ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $120.05 and a 200 day simple moving average of $121.84.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released 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 prior year, the company posted $1.23 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total value of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 12,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. This represents a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341 in the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Toronto Dominion Bank lifted its position in NetApp by 36.3% during the fourth quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 125,740 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $14,594,000 after purchasing an additional 33,500 shares during the last quarter. Vise Technologies Inc. purchased a new stake in NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at about $249,000. Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC bought a new stake in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $251,000. PharVision Advisers LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter worth about $403,000. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 8.0% during the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 2,986,330 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $346,653,000 after purchasing an additional 220,393 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.