Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB Takes $160,000 Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

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

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2.0% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after acquiring an additional 199,384 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its position in NetApp by 17.5% during the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after purchasing an additional 416,233 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in NetApp by 3.5% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $309,811,000 after purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 12.8% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $223,806,000 after buying an additional 196,952 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at $36,922,233.58. The trade was a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 31,549 shares of company stock valued at $3,864,316 in the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

NetApp Stock Down 3.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $118.34 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $24.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.75, a P/E/G ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.23. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $122.68 and its 200-day simple moving average is $124.08. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.62 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39.

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 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 quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.76%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on NTAP shares. Susquehanna restated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities increased their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus 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.