NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Rating Increased to Buy at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report released on Wednesday.

Other analysts have also issued reports about the company. Citigroup lifted their price target on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays lifted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $138.00.

NetApp Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NTAP opened at $124.53 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $120.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $121.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.32 billion, a PE ratio of 22.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp has a twelve month low of $83.80 and a twelve month high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for 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%. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.23 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 279,782 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. The trade was a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 52,403 shares of company stock worth $6,248,501. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. acquired a new stake in NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Assetmark Inc. grew its stake in NetApp by 826.9% in the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 215 shares during the period. Synergy Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. grew its stake in NetApp by 929.6% in the fourth quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 278 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 251 shares during the period. 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.