Vest Financial LLC Raises Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Vest Financial LLC lifted its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 61.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 23,525 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,975 shares during the quarter. Vest Financial LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $2,731,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2.0% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,267,357,000 after buying an additional 199,384 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 8.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $738,280,000 after acquiring an additional 453,324 shares during the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its position in NetApp by 9.2% during the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $156,268,000 after acquiring an additional 113,360 shares during the period. KBC Group NV grew its stake in NetApp by 276.9% during the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after purchasing an additional 654,626 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Barclays PLC increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 31.4% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 784,339 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $96,873,000 after purchasing an additional 187,638 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the business’s 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. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 64,110 shares of company stock worth $7,632,601. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen upped their price objective on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Down 0.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.91 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.80 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $120.99 and its 200-day simple moving average is $122.12. The firm has a market cap of $24.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted 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 period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.