Stevens Capital Management LP Sells 4,897 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Stevens Capital Management LP decreased its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) by 67.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,350 shares of the data storage provider's stock after selling 4,897 shares during the period. Stevens Capital Management LP's holdings in NetApp were worth $290,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Intech Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in NetApp by 8.9% during the third quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 302,010 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $37,301,000 after buying an additional 24,651 shares in the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 20.9% in the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 42,302 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $5,225,000 after acquiring an additional 7,318 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 186,777 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $24,057,000 after purchasing an additional 8,305 shares in the last quarter. Hilton Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $4,059,000. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 3.5% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $309,811,000 after purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $127.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report 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. Loop Capital raised NetApp from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Susquehanna reiterated a "positive" rating and issued a $155.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a research report on Monday, August 26th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $137.40.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.00, for a total value of $1,003,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 288,282 shares of the company's stock, valued at $34,017,276. The trade was a 2.86 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.47% of the company's stock.

NetApp Stock Up 1.8 %

NASDAQ NTAP traded up $2.32 during trading on Friday, reaching $131.11. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,100,197 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,856,109. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $26.66 billion, a PE ratio of 24.10, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.23. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.62 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $122.64 and a 200-day moving average price of $123.51.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a net margin of 17.78% and a return on equity of 123.63%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.23 EPS. NetApp's quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.59%. NetApp's payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.