3,301 Shares in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Purchased by Ibex Wealth Advisors

Ibex Wealth Advisors bought a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 3,301 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $383,000.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Quarry LP grew its position in NetApp by 11.7% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 876 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $113,000 after buying an additional 92 shares in the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 22.3% during the 4th quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 549 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $64,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 3.5% during the third quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 3,492 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $431,000 after purchasing an additional 118 shares in the last quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 4.5% in the third quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 2,756 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $340,000 after purchasing an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 2.4% in the third quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 5,108 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $631,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $120.28 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.80 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $24.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.11, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.23. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $121.37 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $122.38.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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 company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. Analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.73%. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total transaction of $1,045,755.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 271,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,375,824.46. This trade represents a 3.04 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock worth $6,123,351 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have commented on NTAP. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen increased their target price on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Bank of America increased their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

NetApp 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.