Suncoast Equity Management Invests $648,000 in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Suncoast Equity Management bought a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 5,580 shares of the data storage provider's stock, valued at approximately $648,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Golden State Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. True Wealth Design LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 2,833.3% during the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares during the last quarter. Capital Performance Advisors LLP purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at about $44,000. Finally, Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at about $51,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of NetApp from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Northland Securities increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a "market perform" rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush reissued a "neutral" rating and issued a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America raised shares of NetApp from an "underperform" rating to a "neutral" rating and increased their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Oppenheimer assumed coverage on shares of NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a "market perform" rating for the company. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $137.33.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O'callahan sold 452 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Monday, February 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.75, for a total value of $54,579.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,553 shares in the company, valued at $1,395,024.75. This trade represents a 3.77 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 279,782 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP traded down $0.08 during trading on Friday, reaching $124.47. 2,975,285 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,327,506. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The company has a market cap of $25.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.88, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $85.28 and a 12-month high of $135.45. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $120.12 and a 200 day simple moving average of $121.92.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company's quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.23 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

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.