ABLE Financial Group LLC Increases Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

ABLE Financial Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 13.9% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 9,311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,134 shares during the quarter. ABLE Financial Group LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,150,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of NTAP. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 23.4% during the 1st quarter. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC now owns 34,499 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,621,000 after acquiring an additional 6,538 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC grew its position in NetApp by 3.3% in the 1st quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 7,920 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $831,000 after purchasing an additional 252 shares during the period. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. raised its stake in NetApp by 21.3% during the 1st quarter. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. now owns 21,551 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,262,000 after buying an additional 3,789 shares during the last quarter. LSV Asset Management lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 18.4% during the 1st quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 742,659 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $77,957,000 after buying an additional 115,276 shares during the period. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 7.8% in the 1st quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 29,649 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $3,112,000 after buying an additional 2,155 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 10,890 shares of company stock valued at $1,369,172. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have weighed in on NTAP shares. Barclays increased their target price on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reissued a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price objective on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.06.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ NTAP traded up $1.18 during trading on Friday, hitting $124.01. 182,925 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,809,906. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $75.32 and a 12-month high of $135.01. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $120.87 and a 200-day simple moving average of $120.98. The company has a market capitalization of $25.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.33 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.45 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.84 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 4th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is 40.63%.

NetApp Profile

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.