Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Cuts Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC decreased its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 8.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 74,676 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 6,868 shares during the quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $8,668,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Intech Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of NetApp by 8.9% in the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its holdings in NetApp by 20.9% in the third quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after buying an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 4.7% in the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $24,057,000 after buying an additional 8,305 shares in the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at approximately $4,059,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI increased its position in shares of NetApp by 202.1% during the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 266,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,886,000 after acquiring an additional 178,135 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have commented on NTAP. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. Citigroup boosted their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $139.20.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NetApp stock opened at $126.30 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $25.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.22, a P/E/G ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $121.07 and its 200 day moving average is $122.69. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $83.80 and a one year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for 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 quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,123,351. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.