NetApp, Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.52 (NASDAQ:NTAP)

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 27th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a dividend of 0.52 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, April 23rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.76%.

NetApp has increased its dividend payment by an average of 1.3% annually over the last three years. NetApp has a dividend payout ratio of 24.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect NetApp to earn $6.43 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 32.3%.

NetApp Stock Down 5.0 %

NASDAQ NTAP traded down $6.27 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $118.22. 2,810,613 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,519,479. The company’s 50-day moving average is $120.19 and its two-hundred day moving average is $122.04. NetApp has a one year low of $86.43 and a one year high of $135.45. 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 company has a market capitalization of $24.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The data storage provider reported $1.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by ($0.36). NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. On average, analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Citigroup raised 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 raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp 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 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $137.33.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total value of $1,011,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 266,765 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,755,705.60. This represents a 3.09 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, 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 sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341 over the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.