NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Cut to Buy at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen lowered shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note issued to investors on Saturday,Wall Street Zen reports.

Several other research firms have also recently commented on NTAP. Bank of America increased their target price on NetApp from $200.00 to $220.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $173.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on NetApp from $175.00 to $195.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 25th. Wedbush raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $150.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 3rd. Finally, Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of NetApp from $209.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Buy rating and ten have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $205.24.

NetApp Stock Down 7.0%

NTAP opened at $185.26 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 1.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $36.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.41 and a beta of 1.46. The business has a 50-day moving average of $205.03 and a two-hundred day moving average of $150.41. NetApp has a 12 month low of $93.69 and a 12 month high of $240.87.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 2nd. The data storage provider reported $2.58 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.46. The business had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.84 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 19.18% and a return on equity of 119.13%. The company’s revenue was up 29.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.15 EPS. NetApp has set its FY 2027 guidance at 9.730-10.030 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 2.540-2.640 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that NetApp will post 8.32 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 9th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.1%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 29.34%.

Insider Activity

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 2,608 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.48, for a total value of $533,283.84. Following the completion of the sale, the president owned 46,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,514,454.40. The trade was a 5.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Deepak Ahuja sold 3,526 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $194.04, for a total value of $684,185.04. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 16,264 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,155,866.56. This represents a 17.82% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders sold 173,524 shares of company stock valued at $35,018,126. Corporate insiders own 0.36% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Provenance Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $26,000. Fortitude Family Office LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 56.9% during the third quarter. Fortitude Family Office LLC now owns 204 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after buying an additional 74 shares in the last quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $37,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 90.8% in the third quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 292 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $61,000 after acquiring an additional 139 shares during the period. Finally, Bell Investment Advisors Inc bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $55,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

About NetApp

NetApp, Inc is a data infrastructure and cloud storage company that helps organizations manage, protect and access data across on-premises data centers, public clouds and hybrid environments. Its offerings support enterprise applications, artificial intelligence workloads, business analytics, backup and disaster recovery.

The company’s portfolio includes all-flash and hybrid-flash storage systems, the ONTAP data management operating system, StorageGRID object storage and Keystone storage-as-a-service.