Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd Raises Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd boosted its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 63.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,261 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,263 shares during the period. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd’s holdings in NetApp were worth $274,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. ORG Partners LLC raised its holdings in NetApp by 14,650.0% in the 4th quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 293 shares during the period. Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth about $27,000. First Pacific Financial purchased a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth about $29,000. UMB Bank n.a. increased its stake in NetApp by 82.9% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares during the period. Finally, Planned Solutions Inc. purchased a new stake in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total transaction of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,601 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $989,095.02. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at $989,095.02. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 152,409 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 40,371 shares of company stock valued at $4,139,505 over the last three months. 0.37% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Argus upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Wedbush upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. StockNews.com lowered shares of NetApp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 7th. Raymond James restated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Finally, Barclays upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $100.60.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP stock opened at $99.43 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $20.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.74, a PEG ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.28. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $60.92 and a twelve month high of $112.48. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $99.63 and a 200-day simple moving average of $89.01. The company has a current ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The company’s revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.02 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Friday, April 5th were issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 45.45%.

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.