Wells Fargo & Company Issues Pessimistic Forecast for NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Price

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) had its price target decreased by Wells Fargo & Company from $140.00 to $130.00 in a research note issued to investors on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Wells Fargo & Company currently has an equal weight rating on the data storage provider's stock.

NTAP has been the subject of several other research reports. Wedbush reiterated a "neutral" rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp from an "underperform" rating to a "neutral" rating and raised their target price for the company from $121.00 to $128.00 in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $137.33.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP traded down $0.08 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $124.47. The company had a trading volume of 2,975,285 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,430,411. The company has a quick ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp has a twelve month low of $85.28 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $120.07 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $121.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.23.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 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 firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.23 earnings per share. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 22,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $114.99, for a total transaction of $2,529,780.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now directly owns 27,099 shares in the company, valued at $3,116,114.01. The trade was a 44.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total transaction of $1,011,840.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 266,765 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $31,755,705.60. This trade represents a 3.09 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341 over the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in NetApp by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $3,069,617,000 after purchasing an additional 429,343 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 199,384 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in NetApp by 14.5% in 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 purchasing an additional 888,671 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in 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 period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its holdings in NetApp by 20.4% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,123,228 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $362,544,000 after purchasing an additional 529,471 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.