Morgan Stanley Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target upped by stock analysts at Morgan Stanley from $132.00 to $146.00 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “equal weight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price target indicates a potential upside of 17.94% from the stock’s current price.

NTAP has been the subject of several other reports. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Down 1.8 %

NASDAQ:NTAP traded down $2.31 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $123.79. 61,274 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,845,283. The firm has a market cap of $25.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.91, a PEG ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $122.94 and a 200 day moving average price of $124.11. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp has a fifty-two week low of $83.62 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the company’s 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 legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Intech Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 8.9% in the third quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $37,301,000 after acquiring an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 20.9% during the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after purchasing an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 4.7% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $24,057,000 after buying an additional 8,305 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the third quarter valued at $4,059,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI increased its holdings in NetApp by 202.1% during the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 266,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $32,886,000 after buying an additional 178,135 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.