Pallas Capital Advisors LLC Raises Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Pallas Capital Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 98.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 4,118 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,039 shares during the period. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $494,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 48.3% in the 1st quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,375,366 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $249,307,000 after acquiring an additional 773,773 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 59.6% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $211,637,000 after acquiring an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc increased its stake in NetApp by 26.5% in the 1st quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 2,148,540 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $225,532,000 after acquiring an additional 450,263 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. bought a new position in NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth about $56,313,000. Finally, APG Asset Management US Inc. bought a new position in NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth about $48,074,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Barclays increased their price objective on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI increased their price objective on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $129.06.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the firm’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 value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at $1,475,782.80. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the firm’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 value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at $1,475,782.80. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,369,172 in the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

NetApp Trading Down 2.0 %

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $118.76 on Thursday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $71.18 and a fifty-two week 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 50 day simple moving average of $122.43 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $120.41. The stock has a market cap of $24.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.48 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.45 by $0.11. NetApp had a return on equity of 121.41% and a net margin of 17.01%. The business had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.53 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.84 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast 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 was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 4th were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 40.63%.

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.