Northwest Investment Counselors LLC Makes New $27,000 Investment in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 216 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $27,000.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 48.3% in the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,375,366 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $249,307,000 after buying an additional 773,773 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 59.6% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $211,637,000 after purchasing an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 26.5% during the first quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 2,148,540 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $225,532,000 after purchasing an additional 450,263 shares during the period. TCW Group Inc. bought a new stake in NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $56,313,000. Finally, APG Asset Management US Inc. acquired a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $48,074,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on NTAP. Citigroup raised their price objective on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.06.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.37% of the stock is owned by insiders.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $119.75 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.64 billion, a PE ratio of 25.81, a PEG ratio of 4.77 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The company’s 50-day moving average is $123.76 and its 200-day moving average is $119.86. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $70.82 and a fifty-two week high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.45 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 121.41% and a net margin of 17.01%. The business’s revenue was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.84 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 4th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.74%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 44.83%.

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.