Peak Financial Advisors LLC Buys 173 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Peak Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 0.7% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 23,936 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 173 shares during the period. NetApp makes up 1.4% of Peak Financial Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 27th largest position. Peak Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $2,778,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Park Avenue Securities LLC increased its holdings in NetApp by 180.1% in the 4th quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 13,168 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,529,000 after acquiring an additional 8,466 shares during the last quarter. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter worth about $859,000. Oak Thistle LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $416,000. Tealwood Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in NetApp by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Tealwood Asset Management Inc. now owns 22,723 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,638,000 after buying an additional 243 shares during the period. Finally, Eastern Bank grew its stake in NetApp by 58.8% in the 4th quarter. Eastern Bank now owns 1,397 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $162,000 after buying an additional 517 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total value of $52,672.29. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,402,063.95. The trade was a 3.62 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This trade represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,149,531. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on NTAP. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America lifted their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective 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. Finally, TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $116.69 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $23.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.45, a PEG ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. The business has a 50 day moving average of $121.02 and a 200 day moving average of $122.97. 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, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company 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 123.63%. The firm’s 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. On average, sell-side analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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 issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.78%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.