NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.09 EPS

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09, RTT News reports. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 119.68%. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.23 EPS.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The company has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a PE ratio of 22.49, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $121.87 and its 200-day moving average price is $122.59. NetApp has a twelve month low of $77.56 and a twelve month high of $135.45.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Bank of America increased their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday. Barclays boosted their price objective on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. UBS Group increased their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $134.00.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.