Richardson Financial Services Inc. Takes $52,000 Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Richardson Financial Services Inc. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 445 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $52,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Intech Investment Management LLC boosted its position in NetApp by 8.9% during the third quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares in the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after buying an additional 7,318 shares in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its stake in NetApp by 9.2% in the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $156,268,000 after acquiring an additional 113,360 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,059,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC raised its position in NetApp by 232.2% during the third quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 6,731 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $831,000 after acquiring an additional 4,705 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on NTAP. TD Cowen raised their price objective 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. 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 research report on Friday, November 22nd. 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 note on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. The trade was a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,123,351 over the last three months. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP opened at $122.10 on Monday. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $83.80 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The firm has a market cap of $24.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.44, a PEG ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $121.21 and a 200 day simple moving average of $122.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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

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.