NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Receives Average Rating of “Hold” from Brokerages

Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) have been given an average recommendation of “Hold” by the twenty research firms that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, ten have given a hold recommendation and nine have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $78.35.

Several research firms have recently issued reports on NTAP. Susquehanna raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to a “positive” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $62.00 to $100.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 5th. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on NetApp from $72.00 to $80.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 5th. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $75.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Thursday, August 24th. SpectralCast reaffirmed a “maintains” rating on shares of NetApp in a research note on Thursday, June 1st. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on NetApp from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, August 21st.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Gerald Held sold 5,634 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $78.50, for a total transaction of $442,269.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 17,457 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,370,374.50. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 872 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $73.58, for a total value of $64,161.76. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 13,953 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,026,661.74. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Gerald Held sold 5,634 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.50, for a total value of $442,269.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 17,457 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,370,374.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 48,362 shares of company stock valued at $3,787,230 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Private Advisor Group LLC grew its holdings in NetApp by 66.3% during the first quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 7,740 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $643,000 after buying an additional 3,086 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS grew its holdings in NetApp by 6.0% during the first quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 29,741 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,469,000 after buying an additional 1,672 shares in the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. grew its holdings in NetApp by 0.8% during the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 139,507 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $11,563,000 after buying an additional 1,086 shares in the last quarter. Aviva PLC grew its holdings in NetApp by 41.0% during the first quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 98,770 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $8,198,000 after buying an additional 28,705 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Prudential PLC bought a new stake in NetApp during the first quarter worth $465,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.25% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

NTAP opened at $77.72 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $16.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.22. NetApp has a 52-week low of $58.08 and a 52-week high of $80.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.74, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a current ratio of 1.28. The business’s fifty day moving average is $77.69 and its 200-day moving average is $70.70.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 23rd. The data storage provider reported $1.15 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.41 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 85.69% and a net margin of 19.49%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was down 10.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.97 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that NetApp will post 4.48 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, October 6th will be paid a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 5th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.57%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 36.17%.

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.