TD Cowen Has Lowered Expectations for NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target reduced by TD Cowen from $160.00 to $130.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday morning, MarketBeat reports. TD Cowen currently has a buy rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently commented on NTAP. Barclays lifted their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $132.07.

NetApp Stock Down 15.4 %

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $100.00 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $119.85 and a 200-day moving average of $121.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a 52 week low of $88.49 and a 52 week 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.

NetApp Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total transaction of $1,056,465.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. The trade was a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at about $36,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at about $38,040,000. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV now owns 19,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,311,000 after purchasing an additional 565 shares in the last quarter. ABLE Financial Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 36.1% in the fourth quarter. ABLE Financial Group LLC now owns 12,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,471,000 after purchasing an additional 3,363 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Integrated Advisors Network LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 602.8% in the fourth quarter. Integrated Advisors Network LLC now owns 29,391 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,412,000 after purchasing an additional 25,209 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.