KBC Group NV Buys 654,626 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

KBC Group NV boosted its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 276.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 654,626 shares during the period. KBC Group NV’s holdings in NetApp were worth $103,431,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Hershey Financial Advisers LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the second quarter worth $45,000. True Wealth Design LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2,833.3% during the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Capital Performance Advisors LLP purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at $44,000. Finally, Ashton Thomas Securities LLC bought a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth about $51,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on NTAP shares. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on shares of NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays increased their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised 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. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Down 0.2 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $126.00 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $25.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.16, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $121.41 and its 200-day moving average price is $122.62. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $83.80 and a one year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.23 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. The trade was a 3.62 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total value of $1,045,755.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 271,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,375,824.46. This represents a 3.04 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 51,610 shares of company stock worth $6,123,351. Corporate insiders own 0.47% 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.