NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO Sells $1,056,465.00 in Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total transaction of $1,056,465.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 279,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. This trade represents a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

George Kurian also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, November 18th, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00.
• On Monday, October 21st, George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP stock traded down $4.15 on Wednesday, hitting $118.34. 1,873,685 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,851,813. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The stock has a market cap of $24.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $83.62 and a 12 month high of $135.45. The company has a 50 day moving average of $122.68 and a 200 day moving average of $124.08.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced 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. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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 paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.76%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Intech Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 8.9% during the third quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,301,000 after purchasing an additional 24,651 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 20.9% during the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after buying an additional 7,318 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its position in shares of NetApp by 4.7% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $24,057,000 after buying an additional 8,305 shares during the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,059,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI raised its position in shares of NetApp by 202.1% during the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 266,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $32,886,000 after acquiring an additional 178,135 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently commented on NTAP shares. Northland Securities upped their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. UBS Group upped their price objective on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. 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 research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

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.