IFP Advisors Inc Buys 235 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

IFP Advisors Inc grew its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 7.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 3,256 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 235 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc’s holdings in NetApp were worth $378,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Intech Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in NetApp by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares in the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after buying an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 9.2% in 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 buying an additional 113,360 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $4,059,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 232.2% in the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 6,731 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $831,000 after buying an additional 4,705 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. TD Cowen cut their target price on NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $132.07.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total value of $1,011,840.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 266,765 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $31,755,705.60. This represents a 3.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, 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 transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Trading Down 15.4 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $100.00 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $20.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.38, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $119.85 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $121.83. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $88.49 and a 1 year high of $135.45. 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 business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. 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 currently 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.