NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $145.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target raised by Stifel Nicolaus from $140.00 to $145.00 in a report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a buy rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

NTAP has been the subject of several other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Northland Securities boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Down 3.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.49, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp has a one year low of $77.56 and a one year high of $135.45. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $121.87 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $122.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS 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 net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 119.68%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,475,782.80. This represents a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Hollencrest Capital Management bought a new position in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 1st quarter worth about $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 2,833.3% in the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.