Oak Thistle LLC Invests $416,000 in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Oak Thistle LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 3,582 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $416,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Hollencrest Capital Management acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth approximately $27,000. Hershey Financial Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp during the second quarter worth approximately $45,000. True Wealth Design LLC grew its stake in NetApp by 2,833.3% in the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after acquiring an additional 340 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at $44,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The stock was 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 directly owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at $36,922,233.58. This represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 51,610 shares of company stock worth $6,149,531. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on NTAP. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, December 16th. Barclays lifted their target price on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Northland Securities boosted their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Up 0.5 %

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $119.98 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.80 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $120.98 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $122.94. The stock has a market cap of $24.39 billion, a PE ratio of 22.06, a P/E/G ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.23 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.73%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.