New York State Teachers Retirement System Cuts Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

New York State Teachers Retirement System trimmed its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 1.2% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 223,938 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 2,831 shares during the quarter. New York State Teachers Retirement System’s holdings in NetApp were worth $25,995,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 4,225.0% during the 3rd quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 2,249 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $278,000 after buying an additional 2,197 shares during the period. Creative Planning boosted its holdings in NetApp by 8.7% in the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 26,001 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,211,000 after acquiring an additional 2,073 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd grew its position in NetApp by 2.9% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 38,478 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $4,752,000 after acquiring an additional 1,100 shares during the period. V Square Quantitative Management LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 2.4% during the third quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 5,108 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $631,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Aaron Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth about $230,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 64,562 shares of company stock worth $7,687,180. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on NTAP. StockNews.com cut NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America raised their target price 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. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on shares of NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $137.53.

NetApp Stock Performance

NetApp stock opened at $119.06 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $120.19 and a 200-day moving average of $121.88. The stock has a market cap of $24.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $83.80 and a 52 week high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share 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 revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. On average, analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.75%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.