Palouse Capital Management Inc. Reduces Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Palouse Capital Management Inc. lowered its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 1.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 26,353 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 394 shares during the period. NetApp accounts for 2.0% of Palouse Capital Management Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 17th biggest position. Palouse Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $3,059,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in NTAP. KBC Group NV grew its position in shares of NetApp by 276.9% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after purchasing an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 8.2% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 38.5% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $152,270,000 after purchasing an additional 342,415 shares during the period. Unigestion Holding SA grew its position in shares of NetApp by 926.1% in the third quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 283,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $35,022,000 after purchasing an additional 256,028 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its position in shares of NetApp by 546.8% in the fourth quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 289,504 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $33,606,000 after purchasing an additional 244,746 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 64,562 shares of company stock worth $7,687,180 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on NTAP. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer started coverage on NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Barclays lifted their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, StockNews.com cut NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.53.

NetApp Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $119.06 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $83.80 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The firm has a market cap of $24.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.89, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. 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’s 50-day simple moving average is $120.19 and its 200-day simple moving average is $121.88.

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. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

NetApp 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.