Banque Pictet & Cie SA Buys New Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Banque Pictet & Cie SA bought a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 37,293 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $4,329,000.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Intech Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $37,301,000 after acquiring an additional 24,651 shares during the period. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its holdings in 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 buying an additional 7,318 shares during the period. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. lifted its holdings in 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 buying an additional 113,360 shares during the period. Hilton Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $4,059,000. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 232.2% in the 3rd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 6,731 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $831,000 after buying an additional 4,705 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have weighed in on NTAP. Northland Securities increased their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.53.

NetApp Stock Up 1.1 %

NTAP stock opened at $119.06 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $83.80 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The firm has a market cap of $24.21 billion, a PE ratio of 21.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The business has a 50 day moving average of $120.43 and a 200 day moving average of $121.92.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.23 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is 38.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total transaction of $1,509,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 123,243 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,880,359.82. This represents a 9.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total value of $54,579.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,553 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,395,024.75. This trade represents a 3.77 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 64,562 shares of company stock valued at $7,687,180. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.