Maverick Capital Ltd. Boosts Position in NetApp, Inc. $NTAP

Maverick Capital Ltd. raised its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 24.6% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 22,923 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,525 shares during the period. Maverick Capital Ltd.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $2,014,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Horizon Investments LLC grew its position in NetApp by 3.8% in the first quarter. Horizon Investments LLC now owns 2,919 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $255,000 after acquiring an additional 107 shares in the last quarter. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. grew its position in NetApp by 54.9% in the first quarter. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. now owns 350 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 124 shares in the last quarter. Hohimer Wealth Management LLC grew its position in NetApp by 0.4% in the first quarter. Hohimer Wealth Management LLC now owns 29,694 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,608,000 after acquiring an additional 131 shares in the last quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group grew its position in NetApp by 25.6% in the first quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 902 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $79,000 after acquiring an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Empirical Finance LLC grew its position in NetApp by 3.1% in the first quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 7,507 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $659,000 after acquiring an additional 223 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

NTAP stock opened at $112.79 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $22.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.93, a P/E/G ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.46. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $106.77 and its 200 day simple moving average is $99.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.31, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.55. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $71.84 and a 12-month high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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. The firm had revenue of $1.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.72 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.24% and a net margin of 17.77%.The firm’s revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.80 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, October 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 36.75%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.90, for a total transaction of $105,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 23,251 shares in the company, valued at $2,462,280.90. This represents a 4.12% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.77, for a total value of $29,828.54. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 455 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $44,940.35. The trade was a 39.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 27,802 shares of company stock worth $2,951,604 in the last three months. 0.28% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Northland Securities increased their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Thursday. Bank of America increased their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, August 25th. UBS Group increased their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $114.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday. Morgan Stanley set a $117.00 target price on NetApp in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on NetApp from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, August 11th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and ten have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $124.07.

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.