Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB Acquires New Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB bought a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm bought 1,294 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $160,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Hollencrest Capital Management purchased a new position in NetApp during the second quarter worth approximately $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter worth $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth $32,000. Hershey Financial Advisers LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at about $45,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2,833.3% in the third quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

NetApp Stock Down 3.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $118.34 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $24.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.75, a PEG ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $122.68 and its 200-day simple moving average is $124.08. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $83.62 and a 12-month high of $135.45. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.23 EPS. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen upped their price objective on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $139.20.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 31,549 shares of company stock valued at $3,864,316. Insiders own 0.47% 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.