Prospera Financial Services Inc Buys New Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Prospera Financial Services Inc bought a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 6,027 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $744,000.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in NetApp by 17.5% in the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $359,517,000 after purchasing an additional 416,233 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in NetApp by 3.5% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $309,811,000 after acquiring an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in NetApp by 12.8% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $223,806,000 after acquiring an additional 196,952 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 59.6% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $211,637,000 after acquiring an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Boston Partners lifted its position in NetApp by 3.1% during the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 1,361,262 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $142,879,000 after acquiring an additional 41,011 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

NTAP has been the subject of several research reports. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.34 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $121.87 and its 200 day simple moving average is $122.49. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.89, a price-to-earnings-growth 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, Inc. has a 1 year low of $77.56 and a 1 year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.52 dividend. 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 1.70%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 40.62%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the executive vice president now owns 11,694 shares in the company, 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.