StockNews.com Downgrades NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) to Hold

StockNews.com downgraded shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report sent to investors on Tuesday.

Other equities analysts also recently issued reports about the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.53.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $117.73 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $120.65 and its 200 day moving average price is $121.95. NetApp has a 1 year low of $83.80 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $23.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.64, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 firm earned $1.23 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.77%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at $3,116,114.01. This trade represents a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 64,562 shares of company stock valued at $7,687,180. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Norges Bank purchased a new position in NetApp in the 4th quarter worth approximately $306,440,000. Boston Partners raised its position in shares of NetApp by 53.9% during the 4th quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $241,867,000 after buying an additional 729,394 shares during the period. KBC Group NV raised its position in shares of NetApp by 276.9% during the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after buying an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $64,683,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its position in shares of NetApp by 20.4% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,123,228 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $362,544,000 after buying an additional 529,471 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.