B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG Acquires New Shares in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG bought a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 21,200 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,618,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Hollencrest Capital Management bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the second quarter worth $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,000. New Covenant Trust Company N.A. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 1st quarter valued at about $28,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at about $32,000. Finally, Crewe Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the 1st quarter worth approximately $35,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. Oppenheimer started coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. Susquehanna reaffirmed a “positive” rating and issued a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. Barclays boosted their price objective on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.06.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total transaction of $38,285.44. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at $1,475,782.80. The trade was a 5.69 % 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 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Trading Up 2.7 %

NTAP stock opened at $126.75 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $77.46 and a 12 month high of $135.01. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $121.77 and its 200 day moving average is $122.39. The company has a market capitalization of $25.96 billion, a PE ratio of 24.76, a P/E/G ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.91.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.23 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current 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 issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is 40.63%.

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.