Wedbush Reiterates Neutral Rating for NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Wedbush reissued their neutral rating on shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) in a report issued on Friday morning,RTT News reports. They currently have a $120.00 target price on the data storage provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts have also issued reports on NTAP. UBS Group boosted their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Susquehanna reissued 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 target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Oppenheimer began coverage on NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Up 3.1 %

NTAP stock opened at $126.18 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $25.84 billion, a PE ratio of 23.19, a PEG ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $122.04 and its 200-day moving average price is $122.81. NetApp has a one year low of $77.56 and a one year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly 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. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business’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 company earned $1.23 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,106,096.71. This represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On NetApp

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Hollencrest Capital Management acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the second quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter worth about $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the first quarter worth about $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the second quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC raised its holdings in NetApp by 2,833.3% during the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.