Naples Money Management LLC Takes Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Naples Money Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 1,000 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $88,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,823,258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,143,331,000 after purchasing an additional 294,399 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 70.3% during the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,329,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $691,339,000 after purchasing an additional 3,439,053 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 1.8% in the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,687,364 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $298,809,000 after acquiring an additional 82,923 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley lifted its holdings in NetApp by 12.3% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 2,304,331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $138,398,000 after acquiring an additional 253,024 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at about $138,383,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total transaction of $89,730.42. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at approximately $989,095.02. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 261,202 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,496,330.88. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at $989,095.02. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 in the last ninety days. 0.37% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Barclays increased their target price on NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Raymond James reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Wedbush increased their target price on NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. TD Cowen increased their target price on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $97.94.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded down $2.19 during trading on Friday, hitting $97.95. 1,692,487 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,881,377. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $60.92 and a 52-week 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 company has a market cap of $20.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.45, a PEG ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 1.28. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $98.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $88.27.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.02 EPS. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 4th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.04%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 45.45%.

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.