Ritholtz Wealth Management Acquires 207 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Ritholtz Wealth Management lifted its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 3.3% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 6,407 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 207 shares during the period. Ritholtz Wealth Management’s holdings in NetApp were worth $744,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Aviso Wealth Management increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 1.4% in the second quarter. Aviso Wealth Management now owns 6,149 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $792,000 after purchasing an additional 83 shares during the period. Quarry LP increased its stake in NetApp by 11.7% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 876 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $113,000 after acquiring an additional 92 shares during the period. OLD National Bancorp IN increased its stake in NetApp by 3.5% during the third quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 3,492 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $431,000 after acquiring an additional 118 shares during the period. Ballentine Partners LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 4.5% during the third quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 2,756 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $340,000 after acquiring an additional 118 shares during the period. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 2.4% during the third quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 5,108 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $631,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

NTAP has been the topic of several research reports. Barclays boosted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities boosted their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Oppenheimer assumed coverage on NetApp in a 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, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 43,110 shares of company stock valued at $5,077,596. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

NetApp Stock Up 1.8 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.09 on Tuesday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $120.88 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $122.76. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.80 and a 52-week high of $135.45. 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 company has a market cap of $24.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.44, a P/E/G ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.88 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is 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.