NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Cut to Neutral at Susquehanna

Susquehanna cut shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a positive rating to a neutral rating in a research note released on Monday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. Susquehanna currently has $130.00 price target on the data storage provider’s stock, down from their prior price target of $155.00.

Several other equities analysts have also weighed in on NTAP. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities increased their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.53.

NetApp Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $117.90 on Monday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $120.88 and a 200 day simple moving average of $121.98. NetApp has a 52 week low of $83.80 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The stock has a market cap of $23.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.67, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. 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 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 company 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 revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.76%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 12,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. This trade represents a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 64,562 shares of company stock valued at $7,687,180 over the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. acquired a new stake in NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at $27,000. Assetmark Inc. grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 826.9% in the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, Golden State Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.