NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Given New $132.00 Price Target at Morgan Stanley

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective lifted by research analysts at Morgan Stanley from $127.00 to $132.00 in a report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “equal weight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price target would suggest a potential upside of 4.14% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other brokerages have also recently weighed in on NTAP. Northland Securities increased their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. TD Cowen increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $132.25.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $126.75 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91. NetApp has a 12-month low of $77.46 and a 12-month high of $135.01. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $121.77 and its 200 day moving average price is $122.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.96 billion, a PE ratio of 24.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of NTAP. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in NetApp by 59.6% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $211,637,000 after buying an additional 613,583 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 8.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. acquired a new stake in NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $56,313,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its position in NetApp by 17.5% during the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after purchasing an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Finally, APG Asset Management US Inc. acquired a new position in NetApp during the second quarter valued at approximately $48,074,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% 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.