NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Cut to $153.00 by Analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective cut by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $160.00 to $153.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts have also issued reports on NTAP. Bank of America upgraded NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $121.00 to $128.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays boosted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Northland Securities boosted their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $132.07.

NetApp Stock Down 15.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $100.00 on Friday. NetApp has a 1 year low of $88.49 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $119.85 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $121.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.33 billion, a PE ratio of 18.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.52%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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 available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. The trade was a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Park Square Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at $36,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH purchased a new stake in NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at $38,040,000. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV boosted its holdings in NetApp by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV now owns 19,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,311,000 after purchasing an additional 565 shares during the last quarter. ABLE Financial Group LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 36.1% in the fourth quarter. ABLE Financial Group LLC now owns 12,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,471,000 after purchasing an additional 3,363 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Integrated Advisors Network LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 602.8% in the fourth quarter. Integrated Advisors Network LLC now owns 29,391 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,412,000 after purchasing an additional 25,209 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.