Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. Sells 564,022 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lessened its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 30.9% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 1,259,575 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 564,022 shares during the quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. owned approximately 0.62% of NetApp worth $155,570,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new stake in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at about $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the second quarter worth about $32,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the first quarter worth about $28,000. Finally, Robbins Farley purchased a new position in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at about $44,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have weighed in on NTAP. Northland Securities increased their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reaffirmed a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. One 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, the stock currently has a consensus 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 NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,017,276. The trade was a 2.86 % 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 1,685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 three months, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Down 3.4 %

NTAP stock opened at $122.34 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $121.87 and a 200 day moving average of $122.69. The firm has a market cap of $25.05 billion, a PE ratio of 22.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. 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.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.24%.

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.