Thoroughbred Financial Services LLC Purchases 741 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Thoroughbred Financial Services LLC grew its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 17.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,873 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 741 shares during the period. Thoroughbred Financial Services LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $565,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of NTAP. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $306,440,000. Boston Partners increased its holdings in NetApp by 53.9% in the 4th quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $241,867,000 after acquiring an additional 729,394 shares during the last quarter. KBC Group NV raised its stake in NetApp by 276.9% in the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after acquiring an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at about $64,683,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 8.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $738,280,000 after buying an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total value of $52,672.29. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. The trade was a 3.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total value of $1,509,250.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 123,243 shares in the company, valued at $14,880,359.82. This represents a 9.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 50,627 shares of company stock worth $5,498,573. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

NetApp Trading Down 6.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $76.10 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $74.83 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $105.85 and its 200-day moving average price is $116.12. The company has a market cap of $15.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.99, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.73%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.52%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the company. Loop Capital dropped their price objective on NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Bank of America raised shares of NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. Citigroup decreased their price target on shares of NetApp from $135.00 to $110.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 3rd. Finally, Susquehanna cut NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $129.07.

NetApp 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.