Valley Wealth Managers Inc. Has $4.48 Million Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Valley Wealth Managers Inc. lowered its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 8.9% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 38,592 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 3,788 shares during the period. Valley Wealth Managers Inc.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $4,480,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. KBC Group NV raised its stake in NetApp by 276.9% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,431,000 after buying an additional 654,626 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 8.2% during the third 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 last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its position in NetApp by 38.5% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,270,000 after acquiring an additional 342,415 shares during the period. Unigestion Holding SA raised its position in NetApp by 926.1% in the third quarter. Unigestion Holding SA now owns 283,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $35,022,000 after acquiring an additional 256,028 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama raised its position in shares of NetApp by 546.8% in the fourth quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 289,504 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $33,606,000 after purchasing an additional 244,746 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at $34,774,104.78. The trade was 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 through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total value of $54,579.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,553 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,395,024.75. This represents a 3.77 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 52,403 shares of company stock valued at $6,248,501. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on NTAP. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com cut shares of NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. 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 report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, December 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.53.

NetApp Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $119.06 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $120.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $121.84. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45. 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 company has a market cap of $24.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.89, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.23 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.75%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

NetApp Company 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.