Empowered Funds LLC Acquires 56,135 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Empowered Funds LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 72.3% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 133,819 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 56,135 shares during the period. Empowered Funds LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $16,528,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Bessemer Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 46.1% during the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,754,000 after purchasing an additional 5,273 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI grew its stake in NetApp by 221.9% in the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 301,699 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $32,731,000 after acquiring an additional 207,968 shares in the last quarter. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 10.7% during the first quarter. Tocqueville Asset Management L.P. now owns 5,585 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $586,000 after acquiring an additional 538 shares during the period. Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. bought a new position in NetApp in the first quarter worth approximately $810,000. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its holdings in NetApp by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $24,057,000 after purchasing an additional 8,305 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This represents a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,369,172. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the subject of several research reports. Barclays upped their target price on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Loop Capital raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $129.06.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $117.30 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $76.41 and a fifty-two week high of $135.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $24.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.06, a PEG ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $121.08 and its 200-day simple moving average is $121.74.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.45 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. NetApp’s revenue was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.84 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 4th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.77%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 40.63%.

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.