NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $121.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target lifted by Bank of America from $115.00 to $121.00 in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. Bank of America currently has an underperform rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Other equities research analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Susquehanna reissued a “positive” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Citigroup raised their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Northland Securities lifted their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday. TD Cowen raised their target price on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $134.00.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $121.87 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $122.69. NetApp has a 1-year low of $77.56 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The firm has a market cap of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly 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 return on equity of 119.68% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 in the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Unigestion Holding SA raised its stake in NetApp by 926.1% during the 3rd quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 283,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $35,022,000 after buying an additional 256,028 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. raised its stake in NetApp by 14.9% during the 3rd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 502,438 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $62,056,000 after buying an additional 65,223 shares during the last quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 11.2% during the 3rd quarter. Fortem Financial Group LLC now owns 9,306 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,149,000 after buying an additional 934 shares during the last quarter. Chiron Investment Management LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 93.2% during the 3rd quarter. Chiron Investment Management LLC now owns 11,106 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,372,000 after buying an additional 5,357 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Coldstream Capital Management Inc. raised its stake in NetApp by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 3,080 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $380,000 after buying an additional 166 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.