NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Barclays Analyst Says

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price target raised by stock analysts at Barclays from $115.00 to $117.00 in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “overweight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Barclays‘s target price points to a potential upside of 18.57% from the stock’s previous close.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $115.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Friday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Wedbush restated a “neutral” rating and set a $110.00 price objective (down previously from $120.00) on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Evercore ISI decreased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an “in-line” rating for the company in a report on Monday, April 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $118.93.

NetApp Trading Down 0.5%

NTAP opened at $98.68 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The company has a market cap of $20.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.40. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $90.19 and a 200 day simple moving average of $107.01. NetApp has a fifty-two week low of $71.84 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.72 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.80 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 528 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $92.58, for a total transaction of $48,882.24. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 12,900 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,194,282. This represents a 3.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Anders Gustafsson acquired 2,800 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 27th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $91.00 per share, with a total value of $254,800.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,348 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $577,668. This represents a 78.92% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders sold 28,724 shares of company stock valued at $2,520,032 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. M&T Bank Corp boosted its holdings in NetApp by 4.8% during the fourth quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 12,794 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,485,000 after purchasing an additional 581 shares during the last quarter. Versor Investments LP acquired a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth $395,000. AMJ Financial Wealth Management boosted its holdings in NetApp by 120.7% during the fourth quarter. AMJ Financial Wealth Management now owns 68,897 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $7,998,000 after purchasing an additional 37,684 shares during the last quarter. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth $5,151,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in NetApp by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $3,069,617,000 after purchasing an additional 429,343 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% 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.