Vinva Investment Management Ltd Purchases 34,512 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Vinva Investment Management Ltd lifted its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 23.0% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 184,664 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 34,512 shares during the period. NetApp accounts for about 1.0% of Vinva Investment Management Ltd’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 12th biggest holding. Vinva Investment Management Ltd’s holdings in NetApp were worth $22,415,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hollencrest Capital Management bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the second quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the first quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the second quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, Robbins Farley purchased a new position in NetApp during the second quarter valued at $44,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently weighed in on NTAP. Barclays boosted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities upped their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. This represents 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 have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

NetApp Trading Down 5.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.43 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $122.31 and its 200-day moving average price is $122.96. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $77.56 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $25.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.51, a PEG ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.23 earnings per share. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.79 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.