NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $132.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective raised by Barclays from $119.00 to $132.00 in a research note published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an equal weight rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

A number of other research analysts also recently commented on NTAP. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. TD Cowen boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. Northland Securities boosted their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Oppenheimer assumed coverage on NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. One 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $134.00.

NetApp Price Performance

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 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 PE 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 moving average price of $121.87 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $122.69.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share 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 the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 119.68% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

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 paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. The trade was a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 in the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp raised its position in NetApp by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after purchasing an additional 199,384 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 17.5% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $359,517,000 after buying an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 3.5% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $309,811,000 after purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in NetApp by 12.8% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $223,806,000 after buying an additional 196,952 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.