Brookstone Capital Management Invests $222,000 in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Brookstone Capital Management bought a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 1,915 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $222,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Intech Investment Management LLC increased 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 valued at $37,301,000 after acquiring an additional 24,651 shares in the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. increased its stake 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 valued at $5,225,000 after purchasing an additional 7,318 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in NetApp by 4.7% during 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 purchasing an additional 8,305 shares in the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in NetApp in the third quarter worth about $4,059,000. Finally, 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 worth $32,886,000 after buying an additional 178,135 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Citigroup lifted their target price on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities upped their price target on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays increased their price objective on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’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 value of $1,056,465.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. This represents a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 43,110 shares of company stock worth $5,077,596 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Up 1.8 %

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $122.09 on Monday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $120.88 and its 200 day moving average price is $122.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.80 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $24.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.24%.

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.