Handelsbanken Fonder AB Boosts Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Handelsbanken Fonder AB grew its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 25.8% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 164,660 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 33,811 shares during the quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB’s holdings in NetApp were worth $14,516,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. ORG Partners LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 14,650.0% during the 4th quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth about $27,000. First Pacific Financial purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth about $29,000. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 82.9% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Planned Solutions Inc. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter worth about $34,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at $989,095.02. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total transaction of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at $989,095.02. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total value of $876,860.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,068,738.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 40,371 shares of company stock valued at $4,139,505 over the last quarter. 0.37% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

NetApp Stock Up 1.5 %

Shares of NTAP opened at $99.42 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $20.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.60, a P/E/G ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $60.92 and a 1 year high of $112.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.11. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $99.38 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $88.94.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.25. The firm had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.02 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Friday, April 5th will be paid a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 45.45%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on NTAP shares. Barclays boosted their price objective on NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Evercore ISI upped their price target on NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Wedbush upped their price target on NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $100.60.

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.