Pitcairn Co. Sells 229 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Pitcairn Co. trimmed its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 12,888 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 229 shares during the period. Pitcairn Co.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,592,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 17.5% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after buying an additional 416,233 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in NetApp by 3.5% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $309,811,000 after buying an additional 82,378 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in NetApp by 12.8% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $223,806,000 after buying an additional 196,952 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its stake 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 worth $211,637,000 after buying an additional 613,583 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Boston Partners raised its stake in NetApp by 3.1% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 1,361,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $142,879,000 after buying an additional 41,011 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the subject of a number of research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Loop Capital raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Barclays raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Northland Securities raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $134.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,017,276. This trade represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, 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 transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Trading Down 3.4 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $122.34 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $77.56 and a 12-month high of $135.45. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $121.87 and its 200 day moving average is $122.59. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.49, a P/E/G ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 119.68%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.23 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 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. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.