NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Cesar Cernuda Sells 22,000 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.46, for a total transaction of $2,848,120.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 64,789 shares in the company, valued at $8,387,583.94. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link.

NetApp Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $129.88 on Wednesday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $70.82 and a fifty-two week high of $131.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a current ratio of 1.19. The firm has a market capitalization of $26.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.99, a PEG ratio of 5.21 and a beta of 1.27. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $116.01 and a 200 day moving average of $101.75.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.48 by $0.32. The business had revenue of $1.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 114.54% and a net margin of 15.73%. The company’s revenue was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.20 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.47 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 5th will be paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.60%. This is an increase from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 5th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 43.10%.

NetApp declared that its board has authorized a share buyback program on Thursday, May 30th that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the data storage provider to buy up to 4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 49.4% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 362,959 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,541,000 after buying an additional 119,955 shares in the last quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC grew its position in NetApp by 109.8% in the 3rd quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 11,868 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $901,000 after acquiring an additional 6,212 shares in the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC increased its stake in NetApp by 185.9% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 15,145 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,149,000 after purchasing an additional 9,848 shares during the period. Bank of Nova Scotia lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 81.5% during the third quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 33,903 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,573,000 after purchasing an additional 15,227 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the third quarter valued at approximately $5,658,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the topic of several research reports. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $138.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, March 7th. Susquehanna lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $138.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $135.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, TD Cowen raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $117.81.

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.