Diversify Advisory Services LLC Has $503,000 Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Diversify Advisory Services LLC grew its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 77.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,323 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,891 shares during the period. Diversify Advisory Services LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $503,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth about $27,000. True Wealth Design LLC boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 2,833.3% during the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after acquiring an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Capital Performance Advisors LLP bought a new position in NetApp in the third quarter valued at approximately $44,000. Hershey Financial Advisers LLC acquired a new position in NetApp during the second quarter valued at approximately $45,000. Finally, Ashton Thomas Securities LLC bought a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth $51,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Northland Securities upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $123.67 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $25.14 billion, a PE ratio of 22.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.80 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $120.89 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $122.71. 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 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. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.23 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders 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 1.68%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.24%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 43,110 shares of company stock worth $5,077,596 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.