Naples Money Management LLC Makes New Investment in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Naples Money Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 1,000 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $88,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. ORG Partners LLC raised its stake in NetApp by 14,650.0% during the fourth quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 293 shares in the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in NetApp during the third quarter worth about $27,000. Sunbelt Securities Inc. acquired a new position in NetApp during the first quarter worth about $28,000. First Pacific Financial bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter worth about $29,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 82.9% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total transaction of $862,240.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 261,202 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,496,330.88. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total transaction of $862,240.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 261,202 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,496,330.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total value of $1,540,050.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 144,909 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,877,807.03. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505. Corporate insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on NTAP. Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group upped their target price on NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Barclays upped their target price on NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price target on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.94.

NetApp Stock Down 2.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded down $2.19 during trading on Friday, reaching $97.95. 1,692,487 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,881,377. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.11. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $60.92 and a 1-year high of $112.48. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $98.83 and a two-hundred day moving average of $88.27. The firm has a market cap of $20.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 1.28.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.25. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.02 earnings per share. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.04%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.45%.

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.