Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. Invests $8.26 Million in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Northwest & Ethical Investments L.P. purchased a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 66,899 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $8,263,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 39.4% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 393,975 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $41,357,000 after buying an additional 111,439 shares during the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its stake in NetApp by 8.4% during the 1st quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 3,489 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $366,000 after acquiring an additional 271 shares during the last quarter. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp during the 1st quarter worth approximately $731,000. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $7,141,000. Finally, PGGM Investments increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.8% in the first quarter. PGGM Investments now owns 59,661 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $6,263,000 after purchasing an additional 1,054 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction 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. This trade represents a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,475,782.80. This represents a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 over the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $134.00.

NetApp Trading Down 5.5 %

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $122.43 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $77.56 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $122.36 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.95. The company has a market capitalization of $24.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.51, a P/E/G ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share 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 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 firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.