NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Shares Sold by Vest Financial LLC

Vest Financial LLC trimmed its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 23.4% in the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 18,014 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 5,511 shares during the quarter. Vest Financial LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,582,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Unigestion Holding SA lifted its stake in NetApp by 6.5% during the first quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 323,266 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $28,392,000 after purchasing an additional 19,710 shares in the last quarter. RFG Advisory LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 9.7% during the first quarter. RFG Advisory LLC now owns 5,020 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $441,000 after acquiring an additional 443 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in NetApp by 57.3% during the 1st quarter. Merit Financial Group LLC now owns 17,335 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,523,000 after purchasing an additional 6,314 shares during the period. NBC Securities Inc. raised its holdings in NetApp by 108,500.0% in the first quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 8,688 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $763,000 after acquiring an additional 8,680 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Czech National Bank raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 5.2% in the 1st quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 46,696 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $4,102,000 after purchasing an additional 2,295 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.83, for a total transaction of $695,555.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 249,765 shares in the company, valued at $20,438,269.95. The trade was a 3.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.77, for a total transaction of $29,828.54. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 455 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,940.35. This trade represents a 39.89% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 29,026 shares of company stock worth $2,549,860. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP stock opened at $106.25 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $91.54 and a 200-day moving average of $106.44. The company has a market cap of $21.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.53, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.42. 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 12-month low of $71.84 and a 12-month high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.03. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.73 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.72 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.80 earnings per share. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.96%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 36.62%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Evercore ISI cut their target price on NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 28th. Loop Capital reduced their target price on shares of NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 30th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $117.79.

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.