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 stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total value of $876,860.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 252,702 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,068,738.32. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

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

• On Tuesday, March 19th, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total value of $862,240.00.

NetApp Stock Down 0.8 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $100.14 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.11. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $60.92 and a 1-year high of $112.48. The business has a 50-day moving average of $98.83 and a 200-day moving average of $88.27. The company has a market capitalization of $20.67 billion, a PE ratio of 22.76, a P/E/G ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 1.28.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.25. NetApp had a net margin of 15.21% and a return on equity of 109.49%. The business had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.59 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.02 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 5th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.00%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 45.45%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Rise Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the first quarter worth about $27,000. ORG Partners LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 14,650.0% in the fourth quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 58.7% in the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 115 shares during the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 82.9% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Larson Financial Group LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the third quarter worth about $27,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. TD Cowen upped their price objective on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group increased their price target on NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Citigroup increased their price target on NetApp from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $97.94.

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.