Insider Buying: NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Director Acquires 2,800 Shares of Stock

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) Director Anders Gustafsson bought 2,800 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 27th. The stock was bought at an average price of $91.00 per share, for a total transaction of $254,800.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,348 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $577,668. This represents a 78.92 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

NetApp Trading Down 6.8 %

Shares of NetApp stock traded down $5.51 on Friday, reaching $76.10. 3,381,917 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,873,249. The firm's 50-day moving average is $106.84 and its two-hundred day moving average is $116.43. The company has a market capitalization of $15.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. NetApp, Inc. has a 52 week low of $74.83 and a 52 week high of $135.45.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. NetApp's payout ratio is 38.52%.

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Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in NetApp by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $3,069,617,000 after buying an additional 429,343 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 199,384 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 14.5% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $815,402,000 after acquiring an additional 888,671 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of NetApp by 8.2% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $738,280,000 after purchasing an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 20.4% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,123,228 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $362,544,000 after purchasing an additional 529,471 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on NTAP shares. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $115.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 28th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $132.00 to $146.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Loop Capital reduced their price target on NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $129.07.

NetApp Company 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.