Childress Capital Advisors LLC Invests $278,000 in NetApp, Inc. $NTAP

Childress Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 2,605 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $278,000.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its position in shares of NetApp by 39.6% in the 1st quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 36,998 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $3,250,000 after buying an additional 10,494 shares during the period. Achmea Investment Management B.V. raised its position in NetApp by 55.8% in the first quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. now owns 221,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $19,492,000 after purchasing an additional 79,457 shares during the period. Burns Matteson Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in NetApp in the first quarter valued at about $321,000. UNICOM Systems Inc. purchased a new position in NetApp in the first quarter valued at about $13,483,000. Finally, Hennessy Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in NetApp in the first quarter valued at about $2,050,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.67, for a total transaction of $123,670.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 23,628 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,922,074.76. The trade was a 4.06% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $122.91, for a total value of $1,075,462.50. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 274,938 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,792,629.58. The trade was a 3.08% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 29,529 shares of company stock valued at $3,350,714. Insiders own 0.28% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $118.50 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.55. The business has a 50 day moving average of $113.79 and a two-hundred day moving average of $102.31. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $71.84 and a 52 week high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $23.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.94, a PEG ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 1.45.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 3rd. NetApp’s payout ratio is 36.75%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have commented on NTAP. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $150.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research report on Thursday, August 28th. Northland Securities raised their price objective on NetApp from $119.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 28th. Morgan Stanley set a $117.00 price objective on NetApp in a research report on Thursday, August 28th. Citigroup raised their price objective on NetApp from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, August 11th. Finally, Argus restated a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, August 29th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and ten have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $124.07.

About NetApp

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.