Maryland State Retirement & Pension System Sells 770 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Maryland State Retirement & Pension System cut its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 6.5% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 11,001 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 770 shares during the period. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,277,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. M&T Bank Corp raised its position in shares of NetApp by 4.8% in the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 12,794 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,485,000 after acquiring an additional 581 shares in the last quarter. Versor Investments LP bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter worth $395,000. AMJ Financial Wealth Management raised its position in shares of NetApp by 120.7% in the 4th quarter. AMJ Financial Wealth Management now owns 68,897 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $7,998,000 after acquiring an additional 37,684 shares in the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its position in shares of NetApp by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,225,000 after acquiring an additional 7,318 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its position in shares of NetApp by 9.2% in the 4th quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,346,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $156,268,000 after acquiring an additional 113,360 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Barclays dropped their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Citigroup dropped their target price on NetApp from $135.00 to $110.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. Finally, Loop Capital dropped their target price on NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.07.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the sale, the president now owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 528 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.58, for a total value of $48,882.24. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 12,900 shares in the company, valued at $1,194,282. The trade was a 3.93 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 52,931 shares of company stock worth $6,252,759 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

NetApp Stock Up 0.2 %

NetApp stock opened at $92.25 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $89.88 and a fifty-two 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 $18.76 billion, a PE ratio of 16.96, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $112.44 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $118.07.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.25%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.52%.

NetApp 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.