LGT Group Foundation Sells 8,304 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

LGT Group Foundation reduced its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 292,220 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 8,304 shares during the period. LGT Group Foundation owned about 0.14% of NetApp worth $25,777,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in NTAP. ORG Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 14,650.0% during the 4th quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the third quarter worth approximately $27,000. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 82.9% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 150 shares during the period. Planned Solutions Inc. acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Finally, Huntington National Bank increased its stake in shares of NetApp by 40.4% during the third quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 490 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $37,000 after purchasing an additional 141 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 9,601 shares in the company, valued at approximately $989,095.02. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total transaction of $876,860.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,068,738.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 9,601 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $989,095.02. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 in the last three months. 0.37% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on NTAP. Argus upgraded NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 4th. TD Cowen raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Barclays increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of NetApp from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $100.60.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP traded up $0.14 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $101.13. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 259,107 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,828,811. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $61.54 and a one year high of $112.48. The stock has a market capitalization of $20.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 1.27. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $101.21 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $89.91.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.25. The business had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. NetApp’s revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.02 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Friday, April 5th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.98%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is 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.