NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Shares Purchased by GHP Investment Advisors Inc.

GHP Investment Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 0.6% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 121,239 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 769 shares during the quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $10,650,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in NTAP. M&T Bank Corp increased its position in NetApp by 4.8% in the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 12,794 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,485,000 after acquiring an additional 581 shares during the period. Versor Investments LP purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $395,000. AMJ Financial Wealth Management grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 120.7% in the 4th quarter. AMJ Financial Wealth Management now owns 68,897 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $7,998,000 after purchasing an additional 37,684 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 39.6% in the first quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 36,998 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,250,000 after purchasing an additional 10,494 shares during the period. Finally, Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter worth approximately $5,151,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $115.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 30th. UBS Group reduced their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Loop Capital dropped their price target on shares of NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Evercore ISI reduced their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 28th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reaffirmed a “cautious” rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $117.79.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP stock opened at $104.27 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $96.21 and a 200-day moving average of $104.54. The company has a market cap of $20.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.36, a PEG ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $71.84 and a 12-month high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 126.96% and a net margin of 18.05%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.80 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.99%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 36.62%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, Director Anders Gustafsson purchased 2,800 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 27th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $91.00 per share, for a total transaction of $254,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,348 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $577,668. This trade represents a 78.92% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total transaction of $1,775,594.40. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,075,309.20. This trade represents a 62.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,998 shares of company stock worth $3,366,108 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.