Asset Management One Co. Ltd. Grows Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Asset Management One Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 7.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 123,651 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,322 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. owned about 0.06% of NetApp worth $14,462,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. purchased a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the third quarter valued at $27,000. Golden State Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at $35,000. True Wealth Design LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 2,833.3% during the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP purchased a new position in NetApp during the third quarter valued at $44,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 16th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Susquehanna downgraded NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Northland Securities boosted their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.53.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. This represents a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 52,403 shares of company stock valued at $6,248,501 over the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

NetApp Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $119.06 on Monday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $120.19 and its two-hundred day moving average is $121.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.89, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.75%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.