Pensionfund Sabic Acquires 3,000 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Pensionfund Sabic boosted its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 28.0% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 13,700 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,000 shares during the quarter. Pensionfund Sabic’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,590,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,267,357,000 after purchasing an additional 199,384 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after buying an additional 453,324 shares in the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 17.5% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after purchasing an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 3.5% in 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in shares of NetApp by 12.8% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $223,806,000 after purchasing an additional 196,952 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the president now owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 51,864 shares of company stock valued at $6,185,830 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Up 2.1 %

NTAP traded up $2.49 on Monday, hitting $119.43. The company had a trading volume of 115,258 shares, compared to its average volume of 862,394. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $121.10 and a 200-day simple moving average of $123.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.95, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.62 and a 52-week high of $135.45.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared 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 1.74%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays lifted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen increased their price objective on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

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.