Hilton Capital Management LLC Acquires Shares of 32,867 NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Hilton Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund bought 32,867 shares of the data storage provider's stock, valued at approximately $4,059,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of NetApp by 59.6% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $211,637,000 after buying an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. TCW Group Inc. bought a new stake in NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $56,313,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC increased its stake in NetApp by 17.5% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $359,517,000 after acquiring an additional 416,233 shares during the period. APG Asset Management US Inc. bought a new stake in NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $48,074,000. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. increased its stake in NetApp by 38.5% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,232,852 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $152,270,000 after acquiring an additional 342,415 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company's stock.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In related news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total transaction of $208,266.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. This trade represents a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

NTAP has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Oppenheimer assumed coverage on shares of NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a "market perform" rating on the stock. Loop Capital upgraded shares of NetApp from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and increased their price objective for the company from $121.00 to $150.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Wedbush restated a "neutral" rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Monday, August 26th. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an "in-line" rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an "underperform" rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $129.06.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded up $1.25 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $123.45. The stock had a trading volume of 2,351,125 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,812,244. The company's 50-day moving average price is $121.41 and its 200-day moving average price is $122.35. The company has a market capitalization of $25.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. NetApp, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $77.30 and a fifty-two week high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.45 by $0.11. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The firm had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.84 EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 4th were given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.68%. NetApp's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 40.63%.

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.