Investment Management Corp of Ontario Buys 24,892 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Investment Management Corp of Ontario raised its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 85.8% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 53,890 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 24,892 shares during the period. Investment Management Corp of Ontario’s holdings in NetApp were worth $6,656,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Hilltop Holdings Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at approximately $326,000. Ascent Group LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,617,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. boosted its holdings in NetApp by 27.4% during the third quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 21,534 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,664,000 after buying an additional 4,634 shares in the last quarter. Kestra Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the third quarter valued at about $417,000. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH purchased a new position in NetApp during the third quarter worth about $336,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays lifted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $137.40.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at $1,475,782.80. This trade represents a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was 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 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

NetApp Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $123.29 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.07 billion, a PE ratio of 22.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $83.62 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $122.37 and its 200 day moving average is $123.34.

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, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.