Wedbush Reiterates Neutral Rating for NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Wedbush reiterated their neutral rating on shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) in a research note released on Friday,RTT News reports. They currently have a $120.00 target price on the data storage provider’s stock.

Other equities analysts also recently issued reports about the company. Barclays upped their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. UBS Group upped their price target on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. TD Cowen upped their price target on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Up 3.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $126.18 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.19, a PEG ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $122.04 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.81. NetApp has a 52-week low of $77.56 and a 52-week high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 in the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 46.1% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,754,000 after purchasing an additional 5,273 shares during the last quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $24,057,000 after purchasing an additional 8,305 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 3.5% during 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, Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 132.1% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 28,230 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,963,000 after purchasing an additional 16,066 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.