Royal Fund Management LLC Sells 20,558 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Royal Fund Management LLC cut its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 56.3% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 15,958 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 20,558 shares during the quarter. Royal Fund Management LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,853,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Intech Investment Management LLC increased its position in NetApp by 8.9% during the third quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $37,301,000 after acquiring an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 20.9% in the third quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after buying an additional 7,318 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 4.7% during the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $24,057,000 after acquiring an additional 8,305 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the third quarter valued at $4,059,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI increased its holdings in NetApp by 202.1% in the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 266,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,886,000 after acquiring an additional 178,135 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen raised their price target on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

Insider Activity

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % 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 business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,017,276. This trade represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 43,110 shares of company stock valued at $5,077,596 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $122.09 on Tuesday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $120.88 and its 200 day moving average is $122.76. 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 company has a market cap of $24.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.44, a PEG ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.23 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

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.