NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $135.00 at Citigroup

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective hoisted by Citigroup from $130.00 to $135.00 in a research report released on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a neutral rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

NTAP has been the subject of several other research reports. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Barclays boosted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Northland Securities increased their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp has a 52-week low of $77.56 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $121.87 and a 200 day moving average price of $122.49.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 119.68%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that NetApp will post 5.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851 over the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its holdings in NetApp by 46.1% in the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 16,720 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,754,000 after purchasing an additional 5,273 shares during the last quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of NetApp by 45.6% in the 1st quarter. CreativeOne Wealth LLC now owns 5,164 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $543,000 after purchasing an additional 1,618 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 39.4% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 393,975 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $41,357,000 after buying an additional 111,439 shares during the last quarter. SVB Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 5.2% during the first quarter. SVB Wealth LLC now owns 2,892 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $304,000 after buying an additional 142 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Paloma Partners Management Co bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the first quarter worth $627,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.