NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $145.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective upped by Stifel Nicolaus from $140.00 to $145.00 in a research report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a buy rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. Bank of America lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday. Northland Securities increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Barclays increased their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Down 3.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $121.87 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $122.49. 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 company has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a PE ratio of 22.49, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp has a 52 week low of $77.56 and a 52 week high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 119.68%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.23 EPS. Analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were 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 $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Hollencrest Capital Management acquired a new stake in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the third quarter valued at about $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 1st quarter worth about $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC grew its stake in NetApp by 2,833.3% in the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after buying an additional 340 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.