NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price Down 2.8% – Should You Sell?

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) fell 2.8% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $125.94 and last traded at $125.94. 204,680 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 89% from the average session volume of 1,849,778 shares. The stock had previously closed at $129.60.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on NTAP shares. Barclays boosted 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, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer started coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Susquehanna restated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $134.00.

NetApp Trading Down 5.2 %

The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The company has a market capitalization of $25.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.82, a PEG ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 1.24. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $122.25 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.96.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. Analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.79 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.69%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 39.4% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 393,975 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $41,357,000 after buying an additional 111,439 shares in the last quarter. SVB Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 5.2% during the 1st quarter. SVB Wealth LLC now owns 2,892 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $304,000 after purchasing an additional 142 shares during the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.4% during the 1st quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 3,489 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $366,000 after purchasing an additional 271 shares during the last quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 346,591 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $36,382,000 after purchasing an additional 2,790 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Plato Investment Management Ltd raised its stake in NetApp by 6,290.7% in the 1st quarter. Plato Investment Management Ltd now owns 9,650 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,013,000 after acquiring an additional 9,499 shares during the period. 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.