Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado Reduces Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado reduced its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 3.5% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 27,068 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 973 shares during the quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado’s holdings in NetApp were worth $2,068,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Sunbelt Securities Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Global Retirement Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 51.6% during the 1st quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 464 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 34.3% during the 2nd quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 595 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $45,000 after buying an additional 152 shares in the last quarter. HHM Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 157.4% during the 1st quarter. HHM Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 785 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $50,000 after buying an additional 480 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Caldwell Sutter Capital Inc. lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 41.1% during the 2nd quarter. Caldwell Sutter Capital Inc. now owns 748 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $57,000 after buying an additional 218 shares in the last quarter. 90.25% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently commented on NTAP. William Blair cut shares of NetApp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Monday, September 18th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 24th. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $75.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Thursday, August 24th. Susquehanna upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to a “positive” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $62.00 to $100.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of NetApp from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $60.00 to $74.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $77.84.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, September 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.58, for a total transaction of $69,314.18. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 12,770 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,016,236.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other NetApp news, CAO Robert Parks sold 9,113 shares of the firm’s 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $79.58, for a total transaction of $69,314.18. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,770 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,016,236.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 76,489 shares of company stock valued at $5,909,145. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $76.79 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.74, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $58.08 and a one year high of $80.53. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $75.70 and its 200-day moving average price is $74.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.89, a PEG ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.20.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 23rd. The data storage provider reported $1.15 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 company had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.41 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.97 EPS. The firm’s quarterly 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 fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 25th. Investors of record on Friday, October 6th were issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.60%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 5th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 36.17%.

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.