NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Receives Neutral Rating from Wedbush

Wedbush restated their neutral rating on shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) in a research note published on Friday,RTT News reports. They currently have a $110.00 target price on the data storage provider’s stock, down from their previous target price of $120.00.

NTAP has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen reduced their price target on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Northland Securities upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America raised shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price target for the company from $121.00 to $128.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $132.07.

NetApp Stock Down 15.4 %

NTAP stock opened at $100.00 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $20.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.38, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a 52 week low of $88.49 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $119.85 and its 200 day moving average price is $121.86. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.52%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 279,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at $26,000. Assetmark Inc. boosted its stake in NetApp by 826.9% during the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. boosted its stake in NetApp by 929.6% during the 4th quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 278 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Golden State Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at $35,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.