New York State Common Retirement Fund Trims Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

New York State Common Retirement Fund trimmed its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 10.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 171,199 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 20,408 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned about 0.08% of NetApp worth $15,093,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of NTAP. ORG Partners LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 14,650.0% in the 4th quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 293 shares in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. raised its position in shares of NetApp by 82.9% in the fourth 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. Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Planned Solutions Inc. acquired a new stake in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. Finally, First Pacific Financial purchased a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $29,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

NTAP has been the topic of several analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price objective (up previously from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Evercore ISI upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Argus upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, March 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $100.60.

NetApp Stock Performance

NetApp stock opened at $102.48 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.15 billion, a PE ratio of 23.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.28. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $61.54 and a one year high of $112.48. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $100.55 and its 200 day moving average price is $89.64. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.15.

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

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 5th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 45.45%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total transaction of $876,860.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 252,702 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,068,738.32. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at $15,660,024.75. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total value of $876,860.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,068,738.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505. 0.37% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.