JPMorgan Chase & Co. Issues Pessimistic Forecast for NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective lowered by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $160.00 to $153.00 in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an overweight rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Bank of America raised shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, TD Cowen decreased their price target on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $132.07.

NetApp Trading Down 15.4 %

NTAP stock opened at $100.00 on Friday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $119.85 and its 200-day simple moving average is $121.86. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp has a 52-week low of $88.49 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The firm has a market cap of $20.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.38, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.08%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.52%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total value of $1,509,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 123,243 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,880,359.82. This trade represents a 9.21 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. This trade represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in NetApp by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,069,617,000 after purchasing an additional 429,343 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in NetApp by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after buying an additional 199,384 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in NetApp by 14.5% in the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $815,402,000 after buying an additional 888,671 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in NetApp by 8.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after buying an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in NetApp by 20.4% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,123,228 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $362,544,000 after buying an additional 529,471 shares during the period. 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.