Wedmont Private Capital Has $453,000 Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Wedmont Private Capital increased its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 6.9% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 3,482 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 224 shares during the period. Wedmont Private Capital’s holdings in NetApp were worth $453,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. J.Safra Asset Management Corp lifted its stake in NetApp by 706.3% in the first quarter. J.Safra Asset Management Corp now owns 258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 226 shares during the last quarter. Rise Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the first quarter valued at $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. acquired a new stake in NetApp in the first quarter valued at $28,000. ORG Partners LLC lifted its stake in NetApp by 14,650.0% in the fourth quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in NetApp by 58.7% in the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 115 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP traded up $2.95 on Tuesday, reaching $125.88. The company had a trading volume of 1,022,572 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,929,228. The company has a market cap of $25.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.26, a P/E/G ratio of 4.96 and a beta of 1.27. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $70.82 and a 52-week high of $135.01. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $126.09 and a 200 day simple moving average of $109.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a current ratio of 1.19.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.48 by $0.32. NetApp had a net margin of 15.73% and a return on equity of 114.54%. The firm had revenue of $1.67 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.20 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Investors of record on Friday, July 5th were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. This is an increase from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date was Friday, July 5th. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 44.83%.

NetApp declared that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Thursday, May 30th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the data storage provider to buy up to 4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the subject of a number of research reports. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 29th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday. Susquehanna raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $138.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of NetApp from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $95.00 to $125.00 in a research report on Friday, May 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $119.38.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $127.24, for a total value of $954,300.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 193,369 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,604,271.56. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,334 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, June 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $127.33, for a total transaction of $424,518.22. Following the sale, the director now owns 11,455 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,458,565.15. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $127.24, for a total transaction of $954,300.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 193,369 shares in the company, valued at approximately $24,604,271.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 41,786 shares of company stock valued at $5,395,146 over the last three months. 0.37% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.