Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO Sells $1,011,840.00 in Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total transaction of $1,011,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 266,765 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,755,705.60. This trade represents a 3.09 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

George Kurian also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, January 21st, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total transaction of $1,045,755.00.
• On Monday, December 16th, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total transaction of $1,056,465.00.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $124.47 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $120.12 and a 200-day simple moving average of $121.92. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $85.28 and a one year high of $135.45. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $25.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.88, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its 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. 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 analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Ascent Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 21.3% in the fourth quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 15,879 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,843,000 after buying an additional 2,790 shares during the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 373.4% in the fourth quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 243,504 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,266,000 after buying an additional 192,062 shares during the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 36.3% during the fourth quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 125,740 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $14,594,000 after acquiring an additional 33,500 shares during the period. Vise Technologies Inc. acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $249,000. Finally, Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $251,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on NTAP shares. Citigroup lifted their price objective 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. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Susquehanna cut shares of NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $137.33.

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.