Cooper Financial Group Purchases Shares of 1,780 NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Cooper Financial Group acquired a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 1,780 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of NTAP. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the third quarter worth $27,000. True Wealth Design LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2,833.3% during the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after acquiring an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Capital Performance Advisors LLP purchased a new stake in NetApp during the 3rd quarter worth $44,000. Finally, Hershey Financial Advisers LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth $45,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,149,531 over the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have commented on NTAP shares. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, December 16th. Northland Securities upped their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $139.20.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP opened at $116.69 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The company has a 50-day moving average of $121.02 and a 200-day moving average of $122.97. The company has a market capitalization of $23.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.45, a PEG ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors 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 yield of 1.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.24%.

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.