Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC Sells 69,234 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC cut its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 79.8% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 17,475 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 69,234 shares during the period. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $2,028,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Barclays PLC grew its holdings in NetApp by 31.4% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 784,339 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $96,873,000 after acquiring an additional 187,638 shares in the last quarter. World Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. World Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,998 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $988,000 after buying an additional 459 shares in the last quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $160,000. Tidal Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 343.1% in the 3rd quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 227,933 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,152,000 after buying an additional 176,495 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 19.6% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 433,616 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $55,009,000 after buying an additional 71,165 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently commented on NTAP shares. Susquehanna lowered shares of NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Evercore ISI reduced their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Bank of America raised shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Barclays cut their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Citigroup lowered their target price on shares of NetApp from $110.00 to $90.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $123.07.

NetApp Trading Down 0.5 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $88.00 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.90 billion, a PE ratio of 16.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.31. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $71.84 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $92.14 and its 200 day moving average price is $111.04. 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 Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th were issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.36%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.52%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total value of $54,579.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,553 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,395,024.75. This trade represents a 3.77 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total transaction of $1,775,594.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,075,309.20. This represents a 62.28 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 50,176 shares of company stock worth $5,095,701. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp 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.