NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $121.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its target price raised by Bank of America from $115.00 to $121.00 in a research report report published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. Bank of America currently has an underperform rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

NTAP has been the subject of a number of other research reports. UBS Group upped their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted 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. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $134.00.

NetApp Trading Down 3.4 %

Shares of NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.49, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp has a twelve month low of $77.56 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $121.87 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $122.49.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 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 119.68%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were 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 quarter, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted 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 purchasing an additional 613,583 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.2% during the third 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 in the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the second quarter worth about $56,313,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its stake in 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 valued at $359,517,000 after acquiring an additional 416,233 shares in the last quarter. Finally, APG Asset Management US Inc. purchased a new stake in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at about $48,074,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.