NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Rating Increased to Buy at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Tuesday.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on NTAP. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities lifted their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, December 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

NetApp Trading Down 0.3 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $119.53 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $121.42 and a 200-day simple moving average of $122.46. NetApp has a 12 month low of $83.80 and a 12 month high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $24.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.97, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 SEC, which is available through this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 51,610 shares of company stock worth $6,123,351. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC now owns 4,442 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $516,000 after buying an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Quarry LP boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 11.7% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 876 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $113,000 after acquiring an additional 92 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 22.3% in the fourth quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 549 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $64,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the period. OLD National Bancorp IN increased its position in NetApp by 3.5% during the third quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN now owns 3,492 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $431,000 after purchasing an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ballentine Partners LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 4.5% during the third quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 2,756 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $340,000 after purchasing an additional 118 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.