Susquehanna Boosts NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target to $130.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its target price lifted by Susquehanna from $115.00 to $130.00 in a research report report published on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a positive rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Barclays raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a buy rating and issued a $120.00 target price (up from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Wedbush raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $104.73.

NetApp Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $115.67 on Wednesday. NetApp has a twelve month low of $66.01 and a twelve month high of $116.01. The company has a current ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. The company has a 50-day moving average of $105.28 and a 200-day moving average of $94.01. The firm has a market cap of $23.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 1.27.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.25. NetApp had a net margin of 15.21% and a return on equity of 109.49%. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.02 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Friday, April 5th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.73%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 45.45%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total transaction of $862,240.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 261,202 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,496,330.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total value of $1,540,050.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 144,909 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,877,807.03. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total transaction of $862,240.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 261,202 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,496,330.88. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock valued at $4,139,505. 0.37% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Cetera Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at approximately $683,000. Cetera Investment Advisers raised its position in shares of NetApp by 132.1% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 28,230 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,963,000 after purchasing an additional 16,066 shares during the period. PGGM Investments raised its position in shares of NetApp by 1.8% in the first quarter. PGGM Investments now owns 59,661 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $6,263,000 after purchasing an additional 1,054 shares during the period. Swedbank AB bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at approximately $7,141,000. Finally, Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the first quarter worth $731,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.