NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Shares Gap Down Following Analyst Downgrade

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)’s stock price gapped down prior to trading on Friday after StockNews.com downgraded the stock from a buy rating to a hold rating. The stock had previously closed at $118.22, but opened at $99.33. NetApp shares last traded at $103.28, with a volume of 1,077,237 shares changing hands.

Several other equities research analysts also recently commented on NTAP. TD Cowen reduced their target price on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. 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 research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $132.07.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. The trade was a 3.62 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Private Advisor Group LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 25.4% in the 3rd quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 3,166 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $391,000 after acquiring an additional 642 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 30.4% in the 3rd quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 8,443 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,043,000 after acquiring an additional 1,966 shares during the last quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 6.8% in the 3rd quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 3,296 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $407,000 after purchasing an additional 209 shares during the period. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 25.9% in the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 796 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $98,000 after purchasing an additional 164 shares during the period. Finally, Conning Inc. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 234.9% in the 3rd quarter. Conning Inc. now owns 6,081 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $751,000 after purchasing an additional 4,265 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

NetApp Price Performance

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 company has a 50-day moving average of $119.85 and a 200-day moving average of $121.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.08%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.52%.

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.