Seizert Capital Partners LLC Acquires 8,944 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Seizert Capital Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 456,444 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,944 shares during the period. NetApp makes up approximately 2.5% of Seizert Capital Partners LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 8th largest holding. Seizert Capital Partners LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $56,375,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 17.5% during the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after buying an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the period. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. increased its stake in NetApp by 11.9% in the first quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. now owns 1,982,787 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $208,133,000 after purchasing an additional 211,204 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 12.8% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $223,806,000 after purchasing an additional 196,952 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 59.6% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $211,637,000 after purchasing an additional 613,583 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on NTAP. Barclays upped their price target on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI increased their target price on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Susquehanna restated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $129.06.

NetApp Stock Down 0.7 %

NTAP stock opened at $117.21 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $24.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.89, a P/E/G ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $121.17 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $121.96. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $76.41 and a 1-year high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.45 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $1.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.84 earnings per share. Analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 4th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.77%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 40.63%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 10,890 shares of company stock valued at $1,369,172 over the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.