NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian Sells 40,000 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian sold 40,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $191.42, for a total transaction of $7,656,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 318,537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,974,352.54. This represents a 11.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP traded up $1.56 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $191.49. 1,917,895 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,695,069. The company has a current ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $93.69 and a fifty-two week high of $209.06. The business’s 50 day moving average is $183.07 and its two-hundred day moving average is $145.44. The firm has a market capitalization of $37.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.01, a P/E/G ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 1.44.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 2nd. The data storage provider reported $2.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 in the previous year, the firm posted $1.15 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 29.9% on a year-over-year basis. 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 analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 8.32 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 9th will be paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 9th. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 29.34%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently commented on NTAP shares. UBS Group raised their target price 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. Northland Securities increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $171.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, September 3rd. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective 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. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, September 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on NetApp from $180.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $193.86.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Roble Belko & Company Inc acquired a new position in NetApp during the first quarter worth $31,000. Elyxium Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at $35,000. West Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the second quarter valued at $37,000. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at $51,000. Finally, Bell Investment Advisors Inc purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at $55,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Company Profile

NetApp, Inc (NASDAQ: NTAP) is a data infrastructure and cloud storage company that helps organizations manage, protect and access data across on-premises environments, private clouds and public clouds. Its offerings are designed to support enterprise workloads such as databases, business applications, artificial intelligence and virtualized computing.

The company’s portfolio includes all-flash and hybrid storage systems, cloud storage services, data management software and infrastructure-as-a-service solutions.