MEAG MUNICH ERGO Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH Grows Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

MEAG MUNICH ERGO Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH boosted its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 39.2% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 51,161 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 14,417 shares during the quarter. MEAG MUNICH ERGO Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH’s holdings in NetApp were worth $5,960,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Intech Investment Management LLC raised its position in NetApp by 8.9% during the third quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after acquiring an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its holdings in NetApp by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,225,000 after acquiring an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in NetApp by 4.7% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $24,057,000 after purchasing an additional 8,305 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter worth about $4,059,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 202.1% in the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 266,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,886,000 after purchasing an additional 178,135 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total value of $1,045,755.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 271,282 shares in the company, valued at $33,375,824.46. The trade was a 3.04 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,123,351. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday, December 16th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays raised their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $126.30 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.22, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $83.80 and a one year high of $135.45. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $121.07 and its 200-day simple moving average is $122.69.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.