Insider Selling: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Sells 22,000 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $129.46, for a total transaction of $2,848,120.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now owns 64,789 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,387,583.94. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP stock traded down $0.36 on Tuesday, reaching $129.88. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,562,258 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,004,968. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $116.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $101.75. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $70.82 and a 1 year high of $131.02. The company has a current ratio of 1.19, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74. The company has a market capitalization of $26.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.21 and a beta of 1.27.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.48 by $0.32. NetApp had a net margin of 15.73% and a return on equity of 114.54%. The firm had revenue of $1.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.20 earnings per share. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp declared that its board has authorized a share buyback plan on Thursday, May 30th that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the data storage provider to buy up to 4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

NetApp Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Investors of record on Friday, July 5th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, July 5th. This is a positive change from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.60%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 43.10%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have commented on NTAP. Argus raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 5th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $138.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $95.00 to $125.00 in a research note on Friday, May 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $117.81.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. ORG Partners LLC increased its position in NetApp by 14,650.0% during the fourth quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 58.7% during the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 115 shares during the period. Rise Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the first quarter valued at $27,000. J.Safra Asset Management Corp boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 706.3% during the first quarter. J.Safra Asset Management Corp now owns 258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 226 shares during the period. Finally, New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the first quarter valued at $28,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

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.