Morgan Stanley Boosts NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target to $132.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target upped by Morgan Stanley from $127.00 to $132.00 in a research report report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an equal weight rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

NTAP has been the topic of several other research reports. Evercore ISI lifted their target price on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

NTAP opened at $126.18 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $25.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.19, a PEG ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp has a 1-year low of $77.56 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $122.04 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $122.81. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84.

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 net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new stake in NetApp in the second quarter worth $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the third quarter worth about $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the second quarter worth about $32,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in NetApp in the 1st quarter worth about $28,000. Finally, Robbins Farley bought a new stake in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at about $44,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.