Bank of America Issues Positive Forecast for NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target lifted by Bank of America from $115.00 to $121.00 in a research report report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an underperform rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

NTAP has been the topic of a number of other reports. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Northland Securities raised their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $126.18 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $122.04 and a 200 day simple moving average of $122.81. NetApp has a fifty-two week low of $77.56 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. 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 firm has a market cap of $25.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.19, a P/E/G ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 46.1% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,754,000 after buying an additional 5,273 shares during the last quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 8.9% in the third 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 last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its holdings in NetApp by 4.7% during the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $24,057,000 after acquiring an additional 8,305 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in NetApp by 3.5% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $309,811,000 after purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Investment Advisers grew its stake in NetApp by 132.1% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 28,230 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,963,000 after purchasing an additional 16,066 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.