NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) PT Raised to $106.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target increased by Morgan Stanley from $92.00 to $106.00 in a report issued on Thursday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an equal weight rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on NTAP. UBS Group increased their price target on NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an underweight rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Susquehanna raised their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a positive rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 22nd. Citigroup raised their target price on NetApp from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 21st. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their target price on NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an in-line rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $104.73.

NetApp Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $115.67 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $23.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.29, a PEG ratio of 3.84 and a beta of 1.27. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $105.28 and a 200-day moving average of $94.27. The company has a current ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. NetApp has a 1-year low of $66.01 and a 1-year high of $116.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.02 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Friday, April 5th were issued 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 dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.45%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total value of $1,540,050.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 144,909 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,877,807.03. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other NetApp news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was 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 can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total value of $862,240.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 261,202 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,496,330.88. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 263,428 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $19,989,000 after purchasing an additional 14,028 shares during the period. Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at $27,000. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 86,556 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $6,568,000 after acquiring an additional 1,875 shares during the period. LSV Asset Management increased its holdings in NetApp by 23.4% in the 3rd quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 617,471 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $46,854,000 after acquiring an additional 117,200 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NBC Securities Inc. bought a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $282,000. 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.