Natixis Advisors LLC Grows Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Natixis Advisors LLC boosted its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 66.0% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 72,137 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 28,693 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $8,910,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Empirical Finance LLC increased its position in NetApp by 1.9% in the third quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 7,383 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $912,000 after buying an additional 136 shares during the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 72.3% in the third quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 133,819 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $16,528,000 after purchasing an additional 56,135 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc grew its position in shares of NetApp by 10.1% in the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 30,627 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,783,000 after purchasing an additional 2,814 shares in the last quarter. Balboa Wealth Partners grew its position in shares of NetApp by 6.8% in the third quarter. Balboa Wealth Partners now owns 3,370 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $416,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lifeworks Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 0.8% in the third quarter. Lifeworks Advisors LLC now owns 21,454 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,650,000 after purchasing an additional 171 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,017,276. This trade represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 in the last three months. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. UBS Group boosted their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Barclays boosted their target price on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Susquehanna restated a “positive” rating and set a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.06.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $126.75 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $121.77 and its 200 day moving average is $122.39. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $77.46 and a one year high of $135.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.96. The stock has a market cap of $25.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.76, a P/E/G ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.64%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 40.63%.

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.