Nisa Investment Advisors LLC Cuts Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lessened its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 7.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 80,278 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 6,587 shares during the quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $7,077,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at $27,000. Sunbelt Securities Inc. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 1st quarter valued at $28,000. First Pacific Financial purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at $29,000. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 82.9% during the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Planned Solutions Inc. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total transaction of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total transaction of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total value of $862,240.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 261,202 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,496,330.88. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 31,000 shares of company stock worth $3,172,915 in the last ninety days. 0.37% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $104.15 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.67, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $96.79 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $87.13. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $60.92 and a twelve month high of $112.48.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share (EPS) 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 firm had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.59 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.02 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed 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 1.92%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 45.45%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

NTAP has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Argus raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 4th. Barclays boosted their price objective on NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price objective (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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average 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.