NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Short Interest Down 21.4% in March

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest in the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,220,000 shares, a drop of 21.4% from the February 28th total of 7,910,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,950,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.2 days. Approximately 3.0% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have commented on NTAP shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Barclays dropped their price target on NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.07.

NetApp Trading Down 3.0 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $88.40 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $17.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.25, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $109.82 and its 200 day moving average price is $117.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. NetApp has a 52 week low of $86.95 and a 52 week high of $135.45.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.35%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.52%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,402,063.95. The trade was a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total value of $1,045,755.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 271,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,375,824.46. This trade represents a 3.04 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 30,931 shares of company stock valued at $3,722,979 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Norges Bank acquired a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth $306,440,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 14.5% during the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $815,402,000 after acquiring an additional 888,671 shares in the last quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 5,858.0% during the 4th quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 895,435 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,942,000 after acquiring an additional 880,406 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 53.9% in the 4th quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $241,867,000 after acquiring an additional 729,394 shares in the last quarter. Finally, KBC Group NV lifted its holdings in NetApp by 276.9% in the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,431,000 after purchasing an additional 654,626 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% 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.