NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) to Issue $0.52 Quarterly Dividend

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 21st,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.52 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, January 22nd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.64%.

NetApp has increased its dividend by an average of 1.4% per year over the last three years. NetApp has a dividend payout ratio of 27.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect NetApp to earn $6.18 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 33.7%.

NetApp Stock Up 2.7 %

NTAP stock opened at $126.75 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $25.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.76, a PEG ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $121.77 and a 200-day simple moving average of $122.39. The company has a current ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. NetApp has a twelve month low of $77.46 and a twelve month high of $135.01.

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. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 in the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. 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 upped their price objective for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $130.00.

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.