Bank of Nova Scotia Increases Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. $NTAP

Bank of Nova Scotia increased its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 824.4% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 224,640 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 200,339 shares during the quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia owned about 0.11% of NetApp worth $26,611,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ascent Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 6,084 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $721,000 after purchasing an additional 90 shares during the last quarter. Caliber Wealth Management LLC KS lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 5.0% in the third quarter. Caliber Wealth Management LLC KS now owns 2,100 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $249,000 after buying an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Frank Rimerman Advisors LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 2.0% during the third quarter. Frank Rimerman Advisors LLC now owns 5,526 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $655,000 after buying an additional 106 shares during the last quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in NetApp by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 4,531 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $537,000 after buying an additional 113 shares in the last quarter. Finally, US Bancorp DE grew its holdings in NetApp by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 15,398 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,824,000 after buying an additional 114 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Barclays upped their price objective on NetApp from $125.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. Northland Securities set a $137.00 target price on shares of NetApp and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $114.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 26th. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $110.00 to $114.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, March 2nd. Finally, Weiss Ratings cut shares of NetApp from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $122.42.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.67, for a total value of $100,670.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 20,382 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,051,855.94. This represents a 4.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders have sold a total of 3,000 shares of company stock valued at $309,610 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.28% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $102.24 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.10, a PEG ratio of 3.06 and a beta of 1.39. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $71.84 and a 1 year high of $126.66. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $101.13 and a 200-day simple moving average of $110.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.15, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.36.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 26th. The data storage provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.07 by $0.05. NetApp had a return on equity of 118.11% and a net margin of 18.07%.The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.91 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.4% compared to the same quarter last year. NetApp has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 2.210-2.310 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 7.920-8.020 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 2nd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.0%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 34.78%.

NetApp Company Profile

NetApp, Inc (NASDAQ: NTAP) is a data management and storage company that delivers hybrid cloud data services for applications and data. Founded in 1992 as Network Appliance and rebranded as NetApp in 2008, the company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. NetApp’s offering focuses on enabling organizations to store, manage, protect and move data across on-premises environments and major public clouds.

The company’s product portfolio centers on the ONTAP data management software and a range of storage systems and services built around it.