C M Bidwell & Associates Ltd. Increases Stock Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

C M Bidwell & Associates Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 202.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,657 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,779 shares during the quarter. C M Bidwell & Associates Ltd.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $308,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. FMR LLC grew its holdings in NetApp by 2.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 267,785 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $33,074,000 after acquiring an additional 5,636 shares in the last quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 66.5% during the third quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC now owns 5,989 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $740,000 after purchasing an additional 2,392 shares during the last quarter. Freedom Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth about $205,000. Public Sector Pension Investment Board grew its stake in NetApp by 12.7% during the 3rd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 8,897 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,099,000 after buying an additional 1,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 124.2% in the 3rd quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 42,064 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,194,000 after acquiring an additional 23,305 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total value of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 12,005 shares in the company, valued at $1,402,063.95. This represents a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.03, for a total value of $1,045,755.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 271,282 shares in the company, valued at $33,375,824.46. This represents a 3.04 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 30,931 shares of company stock valued at $3,722,979 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on NTAP. Loop Capital decreased their price objective on NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $110.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.07.

NetApp Trading Down 3.0 %

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $88.40 on Monday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $109.82 and a 200 day simple moving average of $117.26. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $86.95 and a 1-year 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 Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.35%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.52%.

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.