Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC Purchases 158 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.6% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 6,279 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 158 shares during the period. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $554,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in NetApp by 70.3% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,329,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $691,339,000 after purchasing an additional 3,439,053 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in NetApp in the 4th quarter worth about $138,383,000. Holocene Advisors LP bought a new stake in NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth about $122,552,000. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 291.7% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,040,846 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $65,428,000 after acquiring an additional 775,136 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in NetApp by 83.2% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,577,675 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $100,735,000 after acquiring an additional 716,604 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

NetApp Stock Performance

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $104.72 on Wednesday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $60.28 and a 1 year high of $112.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.61 billion, a PE ratio of 23.80, a P/E/G ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 1.27. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $92.99 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $84.98.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 5th will be issued a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.91%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 45.45%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.82, for a total value of $643,650.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 165,422 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,196,516.04. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.82, for a total transaction of $643,650.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 165,422 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,196,516.04. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 19th. The shares were 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 24,371 shares of company stock valued at $2,351,656 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Argus upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Wedbush boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Northland Securities cut shares of NetApp from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $100.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, November 29th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $120.00 target price (up from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.94.

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.