NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Rating Lowered to Neutral at Susquehanna

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) was downgraded by equities researchers at Susquehanna from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note issued on Monday, Marketbeat reports. They currently have a $130.00 target price on the data storage provider’s stock, down from their prior target price of $155.00. Susquehanna’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 8.73% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on NTAP. Oppenheimer started coverage on NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $137.53.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $119.56 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The company has a market cap of $24.31 billion, a PE ratio of 21.98, a P/E/G ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $120.98 and its 200-day simple moving average is $122.02. NetApp has a 52 week low of $83.80 and a 52 week high of $135.45.

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

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total value of $2,529,780.00. Following the transaction, the president now owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. This trade represents a 44.81 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total transaction of $1,509,250.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 123,243 shares in the company, valued at $14,880,359.82. This represents a 9.21 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 64,110 shares of company stock worth $7,632,601 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter worth $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter worth about $27,000. Assetmark Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 826.9% during the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Golden State Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in NetApp in the fourth quarter worth approximately $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% 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.