Kera Capital Partners Inc. Purchases New Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Kera Capital Partners Inc. acquired a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm acquired 1,832 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $213,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Aviso Wealth Management boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.4% during the second quarter. Aviso Wealth Management now owns 6,149 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $792,000 after purchasing an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. Quarry LP lifted its position in NetApp by 11.7% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 876 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $113,000 after buying an additional 92 shares during the period. OLD National Bancorp IN boosted its stake in NetApp by 3.5% in the 3rd quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 3,492 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $431,000 after buying an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC grew its holdings in NetApp by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 2,756 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $340,000 after buying an additional 118 shares during the period. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 5,108 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $631,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on NTAP shares. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. TD Cowen upped their price objective on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities lifted their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.09 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $120.88 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $122.76. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.80 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The firm has a market cap of $24.82 billion, a PE ratio of 22.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.23 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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 issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value 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. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 43,110 shares of company stock worth $5,077,596 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

NetApp 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.