Avanza Fonder AB Purchases Shares of 17,029 NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Avanza Fonder AB purchased a new position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund purchased 17,029 shares of the data storage provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,977,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of NetApp by 2.0% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after purchasing an additional 199,384 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 8.2% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in shares of NetApp by 3.5% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $309,811,000 after purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of NetApp by 59.6% in 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 purchasing an additional 613,583 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 342,415 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The stock was 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 of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 51,610 shares of company stock valued at $6,149,531 over the last 90 days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

NetApp Stock Up 1.8 %

NetApp stock traded up $2.11 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $122.09. The stock had a trading volume of 1,821,302 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,269,484. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $83.80 and a 12 month high of $135.45. The company has a market capitalization of $24.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.44, a PEG ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $120.88 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $122.76. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. The company's quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.70%. NetApp's payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded NetApp from a "neutral" rating to an "overweight" rating and set a $160.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup raised their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $139.20.

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.