Vontobel Holding Ltd. Reduces Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Vontobel Holding Ltd. reduced its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 14.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 21,096 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 3,495 shares during the quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,860,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. Hennessy Advisors Inc. grew its position in NetApp by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. now owns 41,209 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,633,000 after buying an additional 134 shares during the period. Huntington National Bank boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 40.4% during the 3rd quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 490 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 141 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 14.4% during the 4th quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,187 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $105,000 after acquiring an additional 149 shares during the period. UMB Bank n.a. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 82.9% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 2.6% in the 4th quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 6,279 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $554,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total transaction of $876,860.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 252,702 shares in the company, valued at $26,068,738.32. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total transaction of $876,860.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 252,702 shares in the company, valued at $26,068,738.32. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total transaction of $1,540,050.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 144,909 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,877,807.03. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505. Corporate insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have issued reports on NTAP. Citigroup boosted their price target on NetApp from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $120.00 target price (up from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, March 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Raymond James reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $97.94.

NetApp Stock Down 2.2 %

Shares of NTAP opened at $97.95 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.28. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $60.92 and a 1 year high of $112.48. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $98.99 and its 200-day simple moving average is $88.42.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.25. NetApp had a net margin of 15.21% and a return on equity of 109.49%. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.59 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.02 earnings per share. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Friday, April 5th will be issued a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.04%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s payout ratio is 45.45%.

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.