Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CFO Sells 12,500 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total value of $1,509,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 123,243 shares in the company, valued at $14,880,359.82. This represents a 9.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $124.04 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $83.80 and a 12 month 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 firm has a market capitalization of $25.22 billion, a PE ratio of 22.80, a P/E/G ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $120.95 and its 200 day simple moving average is $122.14.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup boosted their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com upgraded NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $139.20.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC now owns 4,442 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $516,000 after acquiring an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 22.3% during the fourth quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 549 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $64,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 4,597 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $534,000 after buying an additional 111 shares during the last quarter. OLD National Bancorp IN raised its stake in shares of 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 buying an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ballentine Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of 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 buying an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.