Elizabeth M. O’callahan Sells 452 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total value of $54,579.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,553 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,395,024.75. This trade represents a 3.77 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

NetApp Trading Up 1.1 %

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $119.06 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $120.43 and its 200-day moving average is $121.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.89, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $83.80 and a one 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 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.75%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in NetApp in the 4th quarter worth about $306,440,000. Boston Partners increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 53.9% in the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $241,867,000 after purchasing an additional 729,394 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV raised its position in shares of NetApp by 276.9% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after purchasing an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $64,683,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in NetApp by 24.2% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,824,327 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $327,848,000 after buying an additional 550,607 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on NTAP shares. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Oppenheimer started coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Northland Securities boosted their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $137.53.

About NetApp

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.