Private Advisor Group LLC Takes $381,000 Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Private Advisor Group LLC bought a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 4,337 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $381,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of NTAP. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in NetApp by 39.6% in the 1st quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 36,998 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,250,000 after buying an additional 10,494 shares during the last quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. grew its position in NetApp by 55.8% in the 1st quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. now owns 221,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $19,492,000 after buying an additional 79,457 shares during the last quarter. Burns Matteson Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in NetApp in the 1st quarter valued at $321,000. World Investment Advisors grew its position in NetApp by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. World Investment Advisors now owns 12,976 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,506,000 after buying an additional 4,978 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hennessy Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in NetApp in the 1st quarter valued at $2,050,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.77, for a total transaction of $29,828.54. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 455 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $44,940.35. This represents a 39.89% 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 company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.78, for a total transaction of $865,130.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 296,805 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $30,208,812.90. This represents a 2.78% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 18,302 shares of company stock valued at $1,920,479 in the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

NetApp Trading Down 0.5%

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $104.13 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $104.16 and a 200 day moving average price of $102.21. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $71.84 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $20.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.33, a PEG ratio of 2.41 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.03. NetApp had a net margin of 18.05% and a return on equity of 126.96%. The firm had revenue of $1.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.72 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.80 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.0%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 36.62%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 30th. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated a “cautious” rating on shares of NetApp in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $118.86.

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.