NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Shares Sold by Lecap Asset Management Ltd.

Lecap Asset Management Ltd. cut its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 44.9% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 5,700 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 4,654 shares during the period. Lecap Asset Management Ltd.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $704,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of NTAP. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 48.3% in the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,375,366 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $249,307,000 after buying an additional 773,773 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 59.6% in the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $211,637,000 after purchasing an additional 613,583 shares during the period. TD Asset Management Inc boosted its holdings in NetApp by 26.5% in the first quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 2,148,540 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $225,532,000 after purchasing an additional 450,263 shares during the period. TCW Group Inc. purchased a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at $56,313,000. Finally, APG Asset Management US Inc. purchased a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at $48,074,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Barclays lifted their target price on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.06.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,369,172 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $119.84 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.54 billion, a PE ratio of 23.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $70.82 and a 52-week high of $135.01. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $123.60 and its 200 day moving average price is $119.85. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.45 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 121.41% and a net margin of 17.01%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.84 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, October 4th were given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.74%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 40.63%.

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.