Centric Wealth Management Purchases 693 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Centric Wealth Management grew its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.7% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 26,572 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 693 shares during the period. Centric Wealth Management’s holdings in NetApp were worth $3,219,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Hollencrest Capital Management bought a new stake in NetApp in the 2nd quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC bought a new stake in NetApp during the second quarter worth $32,000. Robbins Farley purchased a new position in NetApp in the second quarter worth $44,000. Finally, Hershey Financial Advisers LLC purchased a new position in NetApp in the second quarter worth $45,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on NTAP. Northland Securities boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. Finally, Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $134.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $122.43 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $77.56 and a 1-year high of $135.45. 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 business has a 50 day moving average of $122.36 and a 200 day moving average of $122.95. The company has a market capitalization of $24.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.51, a PEG ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.24.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp’s payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total transaction of $1,003,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 288,282 shares in the company, valued at $34,017,276. This represents a 2.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.47% 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.