NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian Sells 8,500 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total transaction of $876,860.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,068,738.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

George Kurian also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, March 19th, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total transaction of $862,240.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $100.91 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.93, a PEG ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a current ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $98.61 and its 200 day moving average is $88.18. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $60.92 and a 12 month high of $112.48.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.25. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 15.21% and a return on equity of 109.49%. NetApp’s revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.02 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Friday, April 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.98%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 45.45%.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Rise Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. ORG Partners LLC lifted its stake in NetApp by 14,650.0% in the 4th quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 293 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in NetApp by 58.7% in the 4th quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 115 shares in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its stake in NetApp by 82.9% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $27,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have weighed in on NTAP. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Wedbush lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Argus upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, March 4th. Finally, Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.94.

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.