NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a neutral rating to an overweight rating in a research note published on Monday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has $160.00 target price on the data storage provider’s stock.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. Oppenheimer started coverage on shares of NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup increased their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Loop Capital upgraded NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, TD Cowen upped their price target on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.20.

NetApp Trading Down 3.4 %

NetApp stock opened at $118.34 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $122.68 and a 200 day moving average price of $124.08. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The stock has a market cap of $24.06 billion, a PE ratio of 21.75, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a 52 week low of $83.62 and a 52 week high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.76%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at $36,922,233.58. This represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 31,549 shares of company stock valued at $3,864,316 over the last three months. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 59.6% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $211,637,000 after purchasing an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.2% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 17.5% during the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $359,517,000 after buying an additional 416,233 shares during the last quarter. APG Asset Management US Inc. acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the second quarter worth approximately $48,074,000. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its holdings in NetApp by 38.5% in the 3rd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,270,000 after buying an additional 342,415 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.