Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. Acquires 34,472 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. boosted its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 11.7% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 328,566 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 34,472 shares during the period. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $40,581,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its holdings in NetApp by 46.1% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,754,000 after acquiring an additional 5,273 shares during the period. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the first quarter worth approximately $208,000. National Bank of Canada FI increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 221.9% in the first quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 301,699 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $32,731,000 after buying an additional 207,968 shares during the period. Pitcairn Co. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 18.3% in the first quarter. Pitcairn Co. now owns 9,486 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $996,000 after buying an additional 1,466 shares during the period. Finally, Crewe Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp during the 1st quarter valued at $35,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Loop Capital raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Barclays increased their price objective on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI upped their target price on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $129.06.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 19,716 shares of company stock worth $2,410,457. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.20 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $121.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $122.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The company has a market capitalization of $25.02 billion, a PE ratio of 23.87, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $77.08 and a 1-year high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.45 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. NetApp’s revenue was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.84 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 4th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is 40.63%.

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.