Anders Gustafsson Acquires 2,800 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Anders Gustafsson purchased 2,800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 27th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $91.00 per share, with a total value of $254,800.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 6,348 shares in the company, valued at approximately $577,668. This represents a 78.92 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

NetApp Trading Down 0.6 %

NetApp stock traded down $0.56 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $87.84. 2,943,099 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,853,334. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $86.41 and a 52 week 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 stock has a market capitalization of $17.87 billion, a PE ratio of 16.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $109.82 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $117.26.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.37%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.52%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 2.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 267,785 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $33,074,000 after purchasing an additional 5,636 shares in the last quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC boosted its position in NetApp by 66.5% during the third quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC now owns 5,989 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $740,000 after purchasing an additional 2,392 shares during the last quarter. Freedom Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in NetApp during the third quarter valued at approximately $205,000. Public Sector Pension Investment Board grew its stake in NetApp by 12.7% in the third quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 8,897 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,099,000 after purchasing an additional 1,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 124.2% during the 3rd quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 42,064 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,194,000 after purchasing an additional 23,305 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have weighed in on NTAP. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. TD Cowen cut their price target on NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 28th. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 28th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.07.

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.