NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Rating Upgraded by Bank of America

Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from an underperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The firm currently has $128.00 price target on the data storage provider’s stock, up from their previous price target of $121.00.

Several other research firms also recently issued reports on NTAP. Susquehanna downgraded NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday, February 10th. TD Cowen upped their price target on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.33.

NetApp Stock Down 0.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $124.47 on Wednesday. NetApp has a 12-month low of $85.28 and a 12-month high of $135.45. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $120.07 and its 200 day simple moving average is $121.86. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The company has a market cap of $25.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 123.63%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that NetApp will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total transaction of $1,011,840.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 266,765 shares in the company, valued at $31,755,705.60. The trade was a 3.09 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $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 sold a total of 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Ascent Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 21.3% during the fourth quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 15,879 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,843,000 after acquiring an additional 2,790 shares during the period. Mackenzie Financial Corp increased its holdings in NetApp by 373.4% during the 4th quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 243,504 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $28,266,000 after purchasing an additional 192,062 shares in the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 36.3% in the 4th quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 125,740 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $14,594,000 after purchasing an additional 33,500 shares during the period. Vise Technologies Inc. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at about $249,000. Finally, Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $251,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.