Franklin Resources Inc. Purchases 71,165 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Franklin Resources Inc. increased its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 19.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 433,616 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 71,165 shares during the quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. owned about 0.21% of NetApp worth $55,009,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Blue Trust Inc. raised its position in shares of NetApp by 57.9% during the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,252 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $161,000 after acquiring an additional 459 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates lifted its stake in NetApp by 3.8% in the second quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 349,663 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $45,037,000 after buying an additional 12,856 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in NetApp by 125.3% during the second quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 84,077 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $10,829,000 after buying an additional 46,760 shares during the last quarter. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth about $262,000. Finally, Fifth Third Bancorp increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 28.8% in the 2nd quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 10,386 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,338,000 after acquiring an additional 2,324 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on shares of NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. UBS Group lifted their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Northland Securities boosted their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $138.27.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $126.10 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $122.94 and a 200-day moving average of $124.11. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $83.62 and a twelve month high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly 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 123.63%. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued 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 yield of 1.65%. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

NetApp 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.