Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC Takes $742,000 Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Jackson Creek Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm acquired 8,411 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $742,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in NetApp by 804.5% during the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 36,236 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,195,000 after acquiring an additional 32,230 shares in the last quarter. EWA LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $211,000. McAdam LLC acquired a new position in NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $218,000. Mather Group LLC. lifted its position in NetApp by 42.3% in the 4th quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 4,775 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $421,000 after buying an additional 1,419 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Convergence Investment Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 53.2% during the 4th quarter. Convergence Investment Partners LLC now owns 20,423 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,800,000 after buying an additional 7,093 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at $15,660,024.75. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other NetApp news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 152,409 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total value of $1,540,050.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 144,909 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,877,807.03. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Evercore ISI upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Argus raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $120.00 price target (up previously from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Raymond James reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $100.60.

NetApp Trading Down 0.3 %

NetApp stock opened at $102.21 on Wednesday. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $61.54 and a 52 week high of $112.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.15. The firm has a market capitalization of $21.09 billion, a PE ratio of 23.23, a PEG ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 1.28. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $100.88 and its 200-day simple moving average is $89.83.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.25. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The firm had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.02 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 5th were issued a $0.50 dividend. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.96%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.45%.

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.