Hartford Investment Management Co. Sells 292 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Hartford Investment Management Co. trimmed its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.3% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 12,399 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 292 shares during the quarter. Hartford Investment Management Co.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,089,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 4,687.6% during the 1st quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,068,694 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $93,874,000 after acquiring an additional 1,046,372 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 14.5% during the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $815,402,000 after buying an additional 888,671 shares during the last quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 5,858.0% during the 4th quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 895,435 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,942,000 after buying an additional 880,406 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 24.2% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,824,327 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $327,848,000 after buying an additional 550,607 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 97.7% during the 1st quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 1,096,236 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $96,293,000 after buying an additional 541,837 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Citigroup upped their price objective on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Morgan Stanley restated a “cautious” rating on shares of NetApp in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 17th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $118.86.

NetApp Trading Down 2.9%

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $101.10 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $20.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.80, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.44. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $104.23 and a 200-day moving average of $101.86. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $71.84 and a 1-year high of $135.45.

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

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, July 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.1%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 36.62%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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. This trade represents a 2.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.77, for a total value of $29,828.54. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 455 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,940.35. The trade was a 39.89% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 18,302 shares of company stock valued at $1,920,479 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.