NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Barclays Analyst Says

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target upped by Barclays from $119.00 to $132.00 in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. Barclays currently has an equal weight rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other research firms have also weighed in on NTAP. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Susquehanna reissued a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $126.18 on Friday. NetApp has a 1 year low of $77.56 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $122.04 and its 200 day simple moving average is $122.81. The company has a market capitalization of $25.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.19, a PEG ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.24. 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 released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm 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 dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 38.24%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bessemer Group Inc. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 46.1% in the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,754,000 after acquiring an additional 5,273 shares in the last quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC lifted its stake in NetApp by 45.6% during the first quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC now owns 5,164 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $543,000 after purchasing an additional 1,618 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in NetApp by 39.4% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 393,975 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $41,357,000 after purchasing an additional 111,439 shares during the period. SVB Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 5.2% in the first quarter. SVB Wealth LLC now owns 2,892 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $304,000 after purchasing an additional 142 shares during the period. Finally, Paloma Partners Management Co bought a new stake in NetApp during the first quarter valued at $627,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.