GAMMA Investing LLC Acquires New Shares in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

GAMMA Investing LLC bought a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 667 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $58,000.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. ORG Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 14,650.0% in the fourth quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 293 shares during the period. Larson Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $27,000. UMB Bank n.a. increased its position in NetApp by 82.9% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 150 shares during the period. Planned Solutions Inc. bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at $34,000. Finally, Huntington National Bank lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 40.4% during the third quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 490 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,000 after purchasing an additional 141 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total transaction of $876,860.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 252,702 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,068,738.32. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total value of $1,540,050.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 144,909 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,877,807.03. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,068,738.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Trading Down 1.2 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $100.99 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.84 billion, a PE ratio of 22.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 1.28. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $61.54 and a 52 week high of $112.48. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $101.21 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $89.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.15.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.02 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 5th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.98%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 45.45%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group raised their price objective on NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Argus raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Raymond James reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and issued a $120.00 price target (up previously from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, March 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $100.60.

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.