Central Pacific Bank Trust Division Buys New Shares in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Central Pacific Bank Trust Division purchased a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor purchased 950 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $110,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC acquired a new position in NetApp during the second quarter worth approximately $32,000. Hershey Financial Advisers LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the second quarter worth approximately $45,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2,833.3% in the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Oppenheimer began coverage on NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, December 16th. Barclays boosted their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

Insider Activity

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 51,864 shares of company stock worth $6,185,830. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

NetApp Stock Up 0.9 %

NTAP stock opened at $116.94 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $23.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.50, a PEG ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $121.10 and a 200-day simple moving average of $123.58. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $83.62 and a twelve month high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced 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 is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.78%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

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.