Plato Investment Management Ltd Has $1.42 Million Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Plato Investment Management Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 19.8% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 12,213 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,018 shares during the period. Plato Investment Management Ltd’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,423,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Intech Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. Versor Investments LP acquired a new position in NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at $395,000. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. grew its stake in NetApp by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,225,000 after buying an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its stake in NetApp by 9.2% in the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $156,268,000 after buying an additional 113,360 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hilton Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at $4,059,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total transaction of $1,011,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 266,765 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,755,705.60. This trade represents a 3.09 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Barclays lowered their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. TD Cowen lowered their target price on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $130.40.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $95.73 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $119.41 and a 200-day moving average of $121.54. The company has a market capitalization of $19.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.60, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $95.18 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.52%.

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.