NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Releases Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.09 EPS

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09, RTT News reports. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 119.68%. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 EPS.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $122.34 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.49, a PEG ratio of 3.26 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $121.87 and a 200 day moving average of $122.59. 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.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. This trade represents a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In 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 company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Northland Securities upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. TD Cowen raised their price target on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $134.00.

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.