Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Buys Shares of 12,600 NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 12,600 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,111,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Northern Trust Corp lifted its holdings in NetApp by 2.1% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,299,008 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $174,449,000 after acquiring an additional 47,040 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement System increased its position in shares of NetApp by 4.6% in the third quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 1,264,200 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $95,927,000 after buying an additional 55,353 shares in the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada increased its position in shares of NetApp by 31.7% in the third quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 1,109,662 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $84,202,000 after buying an additional 266,812 shares in the last quarter. Ariel Investments LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 25.0% in the third quarter. Ariel Investments LLC now owns 899,155 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $68,228,000 after buying an additional 179,684 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 7.7% in the third quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 812,588 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $61,659,000 after buying an additional 58,131 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com cut NetApp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised 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. TD Cowen raised their price target on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Wedbush lifted their price objective on NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $100.60.

NetApp Stock Up 1.5 %

NTAP opened at $99.42 on Wednesday. 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 market capitalization of $20.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28. The business has a 50-day moving average of $99.38 and a two-hundred day moving average of $88.94. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $60.92 and a 12 month high of $112.48.

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

NetApp Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,601 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $989,095.02. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 10th. The shares were 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 directly owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at $989,095.02. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock valued at $4,139,505 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

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.