NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Upgraded at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report released on Wednesday morning.

Several other equities research analysts also recently commented on NTAP. Stifel Nicolaus upped 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. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.33.

NetApp Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $124.47 on Wednesday. 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 market capitalization of $25.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.88, a PEG ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a 1-year low of $85.28 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $120.07 and a 200 day moving average price of $121.86.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. The trade was a 2.95 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total value of $1,509,250.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 123,243 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,880,359.82. The trade was a 9.21 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $27,000. Assetmark Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 826.9% during the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 929.6% in the fourth quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 278 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 251 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.