NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stake Boosted by Avestar Capital LLC

Avestar Capital LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 6.2% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,763 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 162 shares during the quarter. Avestar Capital LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $341,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in NetApp by 59.6% during the second 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. TCW Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at $56,313,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 17.5% during the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $359,517,000 after buying an additional 416,233 shares in the last quarter. APG Asset Management US Inc. acquired a new position in NetApp during the second quarter worth about $48,074,000. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its position in NetApp by 38.5% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,270,000 after acquiring an additional 342,415 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently weighed in on NTAP. Northland Securities raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Loop Capital upgraded NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Evercore ISI upped their target price on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.43 on Thursday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $122.31 and its 200 day simple moving average is $122.96. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $77.56 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $25.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.51, a P/E/G ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly 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 company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.23 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.79 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.24%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’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 sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the transaction, the director now owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 over the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.