North Capital Inc. Takes $101,000 Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

North Capital Inc. bought a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 1,150 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $101,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Assetmark Inc. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 826.9% in the 4th 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 last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. lifted its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp by 50.0% during the fourth quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 300 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Park Square Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in NetApp in the fourth quarter worth approximately $36,000. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.83, for a total transaction of $695,555.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 249,765 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,438,269.95. This trade represents a 3.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.77, for a total transaction of $29,828.54. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 455 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $44,940.35. This trade represents a 39.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 17,302 shares of company stock worth $1,590,514. Insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. UBS Group cut their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 30th. Barclays increased their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, June 2nd. Finally, Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $110.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, May 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $117.79.

NetApp Stock Performance

NTAP stock opened at $107.48 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $99.90 and a 200 day simple moving average of $103.83. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $71.84 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The stock has a market cap of $21.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.92, a P/E/G ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.25.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.94%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 36.62%.

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.