Avestar Capital LLC Has $341,000 Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Avestar Capital LLC boosted its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 6.2% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 2,763 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 162 shares during the period. Avestar Capital LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $341,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 111,439 shares during the last quarter. SVB Wealth LLC increased its holdings 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. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.4% in the 1st quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 3,489 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $366,000 after acquiring an additional 271 shares during the last quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 346,591 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $36,382,000 after acquiring an additional 2,790 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Plato Investment Management Ltd boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 6,290.7% during the 1st quarter. Plato Investment Management Ltd now owns 9,650 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,013,000 after acquiring an additional 9,499 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the topic of a number of research reports. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities lifted their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. This trade represents a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,475,782.80. This represents a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

NetApp Trading Down 5.5 %

Shares of NTAP opened at $122.43 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $25.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 1.24. The business has a 50-day moving average of $122.31 and a 200 day moving average of $122.96. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $77.56 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.23 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.79 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is 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.