NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Coverage Initiated by Analysts at Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer initiated coverage on shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage issued a market perform rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

NTAP has been the topic of several other research reports. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Barclays increased their price objective on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reaffirmed a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.06.

NetApp Stock Down 0.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $117.21 on Wednesday. NetApp has a 52 week low of $76.41 and a 52 week high of $135.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.96. The company has a market cap of $24.00 billion, a PE ratio of 22.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.49 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $121.17 and a 200 day simple moving average of $121.96.

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

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 4th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.77%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 40.63%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. The trade was a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. This represents a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 10,890 shares of company stock worth $1,369,172. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Hollencrest Capital Management bought a new position in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $32,000. J.Safra Asset Management Corp grew its position in NetApp by 706.3% during the 1st quarter. J.Safra Asset Management Corp now owns 258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 226 shares during the last quarter. Finally, New Covenant Trust Company N.A. acquired a new stake in NetApp during the 1st quarter valued at $28,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.