Integrated Investment Consultants LLC Takes Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Integrated Investment Consultants LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 3,248 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $401,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Hollencrest Capital Management acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the second quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new position in NetApp during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the first quarter worth $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 2nd quarter valued at about $32,000. Finally, Robbins Farley acquired a new stake in NetApp during the second quarter worth approximately $44,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Barclays raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Northland Securities increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. The trade was a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $122.34 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $77.56 and a 12-month high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $121.87 and a 200-day simple moving average of $122.49.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 119.68% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.