Brokerages Set NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target at $137.33

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) has been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the seventeen research firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $132.07.

NTAP has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Northland Securities boosted their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Susquehanna downgraded NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the company from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Barclays cut their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday.

NetApp Trading Down 15.4 %

Shares of NTAP opened at $100.00 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $20.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a 1 year low of $88.49 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $119.85 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $121.79.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.52%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total transaction of $1,509,250.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 123,243 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,880,359.82. The trade was a 9.21 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total value of $1,011,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 266,765 shares in the company, valued at $31,755,705.60. This represents a 3.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter worth about $306,440,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 14.5% during the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $815,402,000 after purchasing an additional 888,671 shares during the last quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 5,858.0% during the 4th quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 895,435 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,942,000 after acquiring an additional 880,406 shares during the period. Boston Partners lifted its holdings in NetApp by 53.9% in the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $241,867,000 after acquiring an additional 729,394 shares during the last quarter. Finally, KBC Group NV boosted its stake in NetApp by 276.9% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,431,000 after buying an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

About NetApp

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.