Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Sells 22,000 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link.

NetApp Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $116.08 on Thursday. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $23.60 billion, a PE ratio of 21.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.62 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $121.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $123.69.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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 period in the previous year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.79%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 2.0% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,267,357,000 after acquiring an additional 199,384 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.2% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $738,280,000 after acquiring an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 17.5% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after acquiring an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 3.5% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $309,811,000 after acquiring an additional 82,378 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 12.8% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $223,806,000 after acquiring an additional 196,952 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on NTAP shares. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and seven have issued 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 $139.20.

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.