NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Shares Bought by AustralianSuper Pty Ltd

AustralianSuper Pty Ltd boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 27.4% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 639,518 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 137,430 shares during the period. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd’s holdings in NetApp were worth $74,235,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at $27,000. Golden State Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at $35,000. True Wealth Design LLC raised its holdings in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at $44,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on NTAP. Susquehanna lowered shares of NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $155.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday, February 10th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.53.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,017,276. The trade was a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The stock was 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 have sold a total of 64,562 shares of company stock valued at $7,687,180 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $119.06 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $83.80 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The company has a market capitalization of $24.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.89, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The company’s fifty day moving average is $120.43 and its two-hundred day moving average is $121.92.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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