Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC Takes $236,000 Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 2,682 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $236,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,823,258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,143,331,000 after acquiring an additional 294,399 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 70.3% in the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,329,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $691,339,000 after acquiring an additional 3,439,053 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.8% in the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,687,364 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $298,809,000 after acquiring an additional 82,923 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 12.3% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 2,304,331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $138,398,000 after acquiring an additional 253,024 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at about $138,383,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $97.95 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $20.21 billion, a PE ratio of 22.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 1.28. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $60.92 and a 12 month high of $112.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.11. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $98.99 and a 200-day simple moving average of $88.42.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 15.21% and a return on equity of 109.49%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.02 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.04%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.45%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at $989,095.02. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at $989,095.02. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total transaction of $876,860.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,068,738.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 over the last ninety days. 0.37% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently commented on NTAP shares. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. StockNews.com cut shares of NetApp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 7th. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $97.94.

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.