NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Shares Acquired by GHP Investment Advisors Inc.

GHP Investment Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 120,470 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,282 shares during the quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. owned 0.06% of NetApp worth $13,984,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Intech Investment Management LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $37,301,000 after acquiring an additional 24,651 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. grew its holdings in NetApp by 20.9% in the third quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,225,000 after purchasing an additional 7,318 shares during the period. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its stake in NetApp by 9.2% in the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $156,268,000 after acquiring an additional 113,360 shares during the period. Hilton Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at $4,059,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 232.2% in the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 6,731 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $831,000 after buying an additional 4,705 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Citigroup raised their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, TD Cowen upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

NetApp Stock Up 1.9 %

NTAP stock opened at $123.72 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $120.92 and its 200 day simple moving average is $122.13. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.80 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The stock has a market cap of $25.15 billion, a PE ratio of 22.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23. 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 (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares in the company, 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 SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,123,351 over the last three months. Company 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.