Public Sector Pension Investment Board Buys 1,000 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 12.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 8,897 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,000 shares during the quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,099,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Intech Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 8.9% in the third quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. increased its stake in NetApp by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after acquiring an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in NetApp by 4.7% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $24,057,000 after acquiring an additional 8,305 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,059,000. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $309,811,000 after acquiring an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on NTAP. Barclays raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Loop Capital raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Susquehanna reissued a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Oppenheimer started coverage on NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Northland Securities upped their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.40.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $131.11 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $26.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.10, a PEG ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.62 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $122.84 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $123.72.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. Analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.59%. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp 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.