Occidental Asset Management LLC Buys 1,788 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Occidental Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 5.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 34,593 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,788 shares during the period. Occidental Asset Management LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $2,643,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of NTAP. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its stake in NetApp by 70.3% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,329,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $691,339,000 after acquiring an additional 3,439,053 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its position in shares of NetApp by 198.9% during the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 3,885,943 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $248,117,000 after purchasing an additional 2,585,728 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at $138,383,000. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 628.2% during the 4th quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. now owns 1,078,635 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $64,783,000 after purchasing an additional 930,506 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 23,444.2% during the 1st quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 897,035 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $57,276,000 after purchasing an additional 893,225 shares during the last quarter. 90.25% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CAO Robert Parks sold 9,113 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.90, for a total value of $691,676.70. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CAO Robert Parks sold 9,113 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.90, for a total value of $691,676.70. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 4,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.52, for a total transaction of $353,340.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 278,550 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,871,746. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 48,362 shares of company stock worth $3,787,230 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP stock traded down $1.93 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $75.79. 570,164 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,086,453. The company has a market capitalization of $15.82 billion, a PE ratio of 14.05, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.22. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $58.08 and a 12-month high of $80.53. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $77.69 and its 200-day simple moving average is $70.70. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.74.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 23rd. The data storage provider reported $1.15 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.08. NetApp had a net margin of 19.49% and a return on equity of 85.69%. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.41 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.97 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 10.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 4.48 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, October 6th will be issued a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.64%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 5th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 36.17%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Barclays lifted their price objective on NetApp from $67.00 to $69.00 in a report on Thursday, June 1st. Citigroup lifted their price objective on NetApp from $80.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 24th. William Blair lowered NetApp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on NetApp from $72.00 to $80.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 5th. Finally, Susquehanna raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to a “positive” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $62.00 to $100.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $78.35.

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.