Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO Sells 8,500 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total transaction of $1,011,840.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 266,765 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,755,705.60. This trade represents a 3.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

George Kurian also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, January 21st, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total transaction of $1,045,755.00.
• On Monday, December 16th, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total transaction of $1,056,465.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $124.47 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $85.28 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $120.12 and its 200 day simple moving average is $121.92. The company has a market capitalization of $25.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.88, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. 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 (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 16th. 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. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.33.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares 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 acquiring an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its position in NetApp by 20.9% during the third quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after acquiring an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its position in NetApp by 9.2% during the fourth quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $156,268,000 after acquiring an additional 113,360 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth approximately $4,059,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 232.2% in the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 6,731 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $831,000 after purchasing an additional 4,705 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.