NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Downgraded by Wall Street Zen to Buy

Wall Street Zen lowered shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a report published on Saturday,Wall Street Zen reports.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on NetApp from $175.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 25th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of NetApp from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a report on Thursday, October 8th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $173.00 to $191.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. Zacks Research raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 9th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $171.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have issued a Buy rating and ten have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $205.24.

NetApp Trading Down 8.8%

NTAP stock opened at $199.18 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.16, a current ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30. The company has a market cap of $39.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.09, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.46. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $205.17 and a 200-day simple moving average of $150.02. NetApp has a 52 week low of $93.69 and a 52 week high of $240.87.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, September 2nd. The data storage provider reported $2.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.12 by $0.46. NetApp had a return on equity of 119.13% and a net margin of 19.18%. The firm had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.84 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.15 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 29.9% compared to the same quarter last year. NetApp has set its FY 2027 guidance at 9.730-10.030 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 2.540-2.640 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that NetApp will post 8.32 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 28th. Investors of record on Friday, October 9th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 9th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.0%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 29.34%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, Director Deepak Ahuja sold 3,526 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.04, for a total value of $684,185.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 16,264 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,155,866.56. This represents a 17.82% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 2,608 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $204.48, for a total transaction of $533,283.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the president owned 46,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,514,454.40. This trade represents a 5.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 173,524 shares of company stock worth $35,018,126 over the last 90 days. 0.36% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth $2,925,168,000. Primecap Management Co. CA bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the second quarter worth $1,395,423,000. First Trust Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 127.0% in the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 3,658,066 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $374,549,000 after purchasing an additional 2,046,912 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the second quarter valued at $258,093,000. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the second quarter valued at $235,682,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

About NetApp

NetApp, Inc is a data infrastructure and cloud storage company that helps organizations manage, protect and access data across on-premises data centers, public clouds and hybrid environments. Its offerings support enterprise applications, artificial intelligence workloads, business analytics, backup and disaster recovery.

The company’s portfolio includes all-flash and hybrid-flash storage systems, the ONTAP data management operating system, StorageGRID object storage and Keystone storage-as-a-service.