Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC Purchases 4,705 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC increased its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 232.2% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 6,731 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,705 shares during the period. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $831,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the business. National Bank of Canada FI lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 202.1% in the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 266,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,886,000 after buying an additional 178,135 shares in the last quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 37.8% in the 3rd quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. now owns 23,515 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,904,000 after acquiring an additional 6,453 shares during the last quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,620,000. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 15.8% during the 3rd quarter. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC now owns 86,709 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $10,268,000 after purchasing an additional 11,831 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Virtus Investment Advisers Inc. increased its holdings in NetApp by 168.8% during the 3rd quarter. Virtus Investment Advisers Inc. now owns 4,300 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $531,000 after purchasing an additional 2,700 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently issued reports on NTAP shares. Oppenheimer began coverage on NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating on the stock. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $138.27.

NetApp Stock Up 3.4 %

NTAP stock opened at $126.10 on Tuesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $122.94 and a 200-day moving average of $124.11. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.62 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $25.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.18, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.23 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.65%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. This trade represents a 26.43 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.