George Kurian Sells 8,500 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at $36,922,233.58. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link.

NetApp Trading Up 0.7 %

NTAP stock opened at $119.84 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $70.82 and a twelve month high of $135.01. The company has a market cap of $24.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.41, a PEG ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 1.23. The business has a fifty day moving average of $123.60 and a 200-day moving average of $119.85.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, October 4th were issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.74%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 40.63%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

NTAP has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Loop Capital raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted 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. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $129.06.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Hollencrest Capital Management acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. J.Safra Asset Management Corp increased its holdings in NetApp by 706.3% in the first quarter. J.Safra Asset Management Corp now owns 258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 226 shares during the last quarter. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new position in NetApp in the third quarter valued at about $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. bought a new position in NetApp during the first quarter worth about $28,000. Finally, Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth about $32,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.