Wells Fargo & Company Cuts NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target to $130.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its target price decreased by Wells Fargo & Company from $140.00 to $130.00 in a report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Wells Fargo & Company currently has an equal weight rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Wedbush reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen increased their target price on NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America raised NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $160.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.33.

NetApp Trading Down 0.1 %

NetApp stock opened at $124.47 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $25.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.88, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp has a fifty-two week low of $85.28 and a fifty-two week high of $135.45. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $120.12 and its 200-day moving average price is $121.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that NetApp will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,116,114.01. This represents a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total value of $52,672.29. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 12,005 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,402,063.95. This represents a 3.62 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock valued at $7,260,341. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter worth approximately $306,440,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its stake in NetApp by 14.5% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $815,402,000 after buying an additional 888,671 shares during the last quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. boosted its holdings in NetApp by 5,858.0% in the fourth quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 895,435 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,942,000 after acquiring an additional 880,406 shares in the last quarter. Boston Partners grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 53.9% in the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $241,867,000 after acquiring an additional 729,394 shares during the last quarter. Finally, KBC Group NV increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 276.9% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $103,431,000 after acquiring an additional 654,626 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.