Janney Montgomery Scott LLC Raises Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Janney Montgomery Scott LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 10.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 13,940 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,267 shares during the quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,618,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,000. True Wealth Design LLC lifted its position in NetApp by 2,833.3% during the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after acquiring an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the third quarter worth $44,000. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $51,000. Finally, Hollencrest Capital Management boosted its holdings in NetApp by 165.0% in the third quarter. Hollencrest Capital Management now owns 530 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $65,000 after purchasing an additional 330 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have weighed in on NTAP shares. StockNews.com raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Northland Securities raised their target price on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Bank of America raised their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.20.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $119.72 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $121.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is $122.21. NetApp, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.80 and a 52-week high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The company has a market cap of $24.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.01, a P/E/G ratio of 2.90 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced 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. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.74%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 38.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was 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 directly owns 271,282 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,375,824.46. This trade represents a 3.04 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock worth $6,123,351 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.