Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA Reduces Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lowered its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 1.4% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 36,240 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 501 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA’s holdings in NetApp were worth $4,476,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Hollencrest Capital Management acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in NetApp in the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $32,000. Finally, Robbins Farley purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

NTAP has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Loop Capital raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. 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. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

NetApp Trading Up 2.7 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $129.60 on Wednesday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $77.56 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $122.25 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $26.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91.

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 the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.60%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. This represents a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.