NetApp, Inc. (NTAP) To Go Ex-Dividend on April 4th

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 27th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a dividend of 0.52 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, April 23rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th.

NetApp has increased its dividend payment by an average of 1.3% per year over the last three years. NetApp has a payout ratio of 24.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect NetApp to earn $6.43 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 32.3%.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $100.00 on Friday. 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’s 50-day simple moving average is $119.85 and its 200 day simple moving average is $121.86. The company has a market cap of $20.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.38, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a 52-week low of $88.49 and a 52-week high of $135.45.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently commented on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Susquehanna cut NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday, February 10th. Oppenheimer began coverage on NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. Northland Securities lifted their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Bank of America upgraded NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $132.07.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares in the company, valued at $1,402,063.95. The trade was a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341. Company insiders own 0.47% 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.