NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Morgan Stanley Analyst Says

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target upped by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from $132.00 to $146.00 in a research note issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “equal weight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 17.94% from the company’s current price.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Loop Capital raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded down $2.31 on Tuesday, hitting $123.79. The company had a trading volume of 61,274 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,845,283. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $122.94 and a 200 day moving average price of $124.11. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The stock has a market cap of $25.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.91, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a 1-year low of $83.62 and a 1-year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.23 earnings per share. Analysts expect that NetApp will post 5.83 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. This trade represents a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position 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 during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after acquiring an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 17.5% during the 2nd 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 last quarter. APG Asset Management US Inc. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $48,074,000. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its stake in NetApp by 38.5% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $152,270,000 after purchasing an additional 342,415 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About NetApp

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.