Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC Takes $236,000 Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 1,831 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $236,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. First Horizon Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 58.7% in the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 115 shares during the last quarter. Rise Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp during the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. J.Safra Asset Management Corp lifted its position in NetApp by 706.3% during the 1st quarter. J.Safra Asset Management Corp now owns 258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 226 shares during the period. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Finally, Crewe Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the subject of several recent research reports. TD Cowen increased their price target on NetApp from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $138.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 12th. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $100.00 to $116.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 31st. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their target price on NetApp from $138.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $122.67.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP stock traded down $0.12 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $133.29. 181,776 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,901,328. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $127.17 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $111.78. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $70.82 and a 1-year high of $135.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74, a current ratio of 1.19 and a quick ratio of 1.15. The firm has a market cap of $27.43 billion, a PE ratio of 28.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.96 and a beta of 1.27.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.48 by $0.32. NetApp had a net margin of 15.73% and a return on equity of 114.54%. The company had revenue of $1.67 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.20 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Investors of record on Friday, July 5th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This is an increase from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, July 5th. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 44.83%.

NetApp announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Thursday, May 30th that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the data storage provider to repurchase up to 4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.36, for a total transaction of $1,108,060.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 314,274 shares in the company, valued at approximately $40,968,758.64. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.36, for a total value of $1,108,060.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 314,274 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $40,968,758.64. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.46, for a total transaction of $2,848,120.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 64,789 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,387,583.94. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 41,786 shares of company stock worth $5,395,146 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.37% 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.