NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $120.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its target price upped by Northland Securities from $108.00 to $120.00 in a report issued on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. Northland Securities currently has a market perform rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts also recently issued reports on NTAP. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $121.87 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $122.69. NetApp has a 1 year low of $77.56 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.49, a P/E/G ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid 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 yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of NetApp 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. This trade represents a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new position in NetApp in the third quarter worth $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in NetApp in the first quarter worth $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new position in NetApp in the second quarter worth $32,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC grew its position in NetApp by 2,833.3% in the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after acquiring an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.