Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CFO Sells 12,500 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total value of $1,509,250.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 123,243 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,880,359.82. The trade was a 9.21 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.

NetApp Stock Performance

NetApp stock opened at $122.91 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The firm has a market cap of $24.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.59, a P/E/G ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $120.98 and a 200-day moving average of $122.15.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The firm 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 business’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 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Intech Investment Management LLC grew its holdings 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 worth $37,301,000 after acquiring an additional 24,651 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 20.9% during 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 in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its stake in NetApp by 9.2% in the fourth quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $156,268,000 after purchasing an additional 113,360 shares during the period. Hilton Capital Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the third quarter worth $4,059,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 232.2% during the third quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 6,731 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $831,000 after buying an additional 4,705 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target 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. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Citigroup boosted their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

NetApp Company 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.