Assenagon Asset Management S.A. Decreases Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Assenagon Asset Management S.A. reduced its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 26,504 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 587 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $3,077,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Summit Trail Advisors LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 12.6% in the second quarter. Summit Trail Advisors LLC now owns 3,332 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $429,000 after acquiring an additional 372 shares during the last quarter. Profund Advisors LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 6.8% in the second quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 4,247 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $547,000 after acquiring an additional 271 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 6.5% in the second quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 38,431 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $4,950,000 after acquiring an additional 2,349 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 112.5% in the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,347 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $171,000 after acquiring an additional 713 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Public Sector Pension Investment Board lifted its position in NetApp by 57.4% in the second quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 7,897 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,017,000 after acquiring an additional 2,879 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 in the company, valued at $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 43,110 shares of company stock worth $5,077,596. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on NTAP. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com lowered shares of NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 16th. One equities 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’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

NetApp Trading Up 1.3 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $123.67 on Wednesday. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.80 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $120.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $122.71. The firm has a market cap of $25.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.23 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.68%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.