Maryland State Retirement & Pension System Trims Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Maryland State Retirement & Pension System lowered its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 12.5% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 9,631 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 1,370 shares during the period. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System’s holdings in NetApp were worth $846,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Manchester Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 375.0% during the first quarter. Manchester Capital Management LLC now owns 285 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 225 shares during the period. Olde Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the first quarter valued at $29,000. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 54.9% during the first quarter. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. now owns 350 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 124 shares during the period. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 929.6% during the fourth quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 278 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 251 shares during the period. Finally, Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 50.0% during the fourth quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 300 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $107.78 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.25. The company has a market cap of $21.60 billion, a PE ratio of 18.98, a P/E/G ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 1.44. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $104.90 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $101.05. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $71.84 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.72 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 126.96% and a net margin of 18.05%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.80 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, July 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.9%. NetApp’s payout ratio is 36.62%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $108.08, for a total transaction of $918,680.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 288,305 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,160,004.40. The trade was a 2.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 1,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.90, for a total value of $105,900.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 23,251 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,462,280.90. This trade represents a 4.12% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 19,302 shares of company stock valued at $2,026,379 over the last quarter. 0.28% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

NTAP has been the topic of several research reports. Barclays raised their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Finally, Evercore ISI dropped their price objective on NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $119.21.

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.