Susquehanna Boosts NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target to $130.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target increased by Susquehanna from $115.00 to $130.00 in a research report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a positive rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

NTAP has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an in-line rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Barclays boosted their target price on NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Citigroup boosted their target price on NetApp from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their target price on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $103.27.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $114.11 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. NetApp has a twelve month low of $65.71 and a twelve month high of $114.22. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $104.78 and a two-hundred day moving average of $93.59. The stock has a market cap of $23.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.93, a P/E/G ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 1.27.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.25. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.59 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.02 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 5th were issued a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.75%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 45.45%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total value of $876,860.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,068,738.32. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total value 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 Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total value of $1,540,050.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 144,909 shares in the company, valued at $14,877,807.03. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock valued at $4,139,505. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at $7,141,000. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at $731,000. Wahed Invest LLC lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 12.6% in the first quarter. Wahed Invest LLC now owns 4,044 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $424,000 after acquiring an additional 451 shares in the last quarter. Heartland Bank & Trust Co purchased a new position in NetApp during the first quarter worth about $1,304,000. Finally, New Covenant Trust Company N.A. purchased a new position in NetApp during the first quarter worth about $28,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.