USA Financial Formulas Acquires 4,687 Shares of NetApp, Inc. $NTAP

USA Financial Formulas acquired a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor acquired 4,687 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $985,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Fortitude Family Office LLC grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 56.9% during the third quarter. Fortitude Family Office LLC now owns 204 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 74 shares during the last quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at $37,000. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of NetApp by 90.8% in the third quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 292 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $61,000 after buying an additional 139 shares during the last quarter. Roble Belko & Company Inc bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at about $31,000. Finally, Bell Investment Advisors Inc bought a new position in shares of NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $55,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, Director Thomas Nevens sold 5,940 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $195.21, for a total value of $1,159,547.40. Following the transaction, the director owned 7,747 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,512,291.87. This trade represents a 43.40% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 50,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $209.95, for a total transaction of $10,497,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 218,537 shares in the company, valued at $45,881,843.15. This trade represents a 18.62% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last quarter, insiders sold 173,524 shares of company stock worth $35,018,126. Insiders own 0.36% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have commented on NTAP shares. Weiss Ratings raised shares of NetApp from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a report on Thursday, October 8th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $180.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. Cantor Fitzgerald raised shares of NetApp to an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 7th. Argus set a $225.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, September 11th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $171.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating and ten have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $213.20.

NetApp Trading Down 5.1%

Shares of NTAP opened at $203.80 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.16, a current ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $93.69 and a 12-month high of $240.87. The firm has a market capitalization of $40.03 billion, a PE ratio of 28.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.46. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $201.97 and its 200-day simple moving average is $163.26.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 2nd. The data storage provider reported $2.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.46. The business had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.84 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 119.13% and a net margin of 19.18%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 29.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.15 earnings per share. NetApp has set its FY 2027 guidance at 9.730-10.030 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 2.540-2.640 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 8.32 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 9th will be given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 9th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.0%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 29.34%.

NetApp Company Profile

NetApp, Inc develops intelligent data infrastructure and data management solutions for enterprises, service providers, and government organizations. The company helps customers store, manage, protect, and access data across on-premises environments, private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid multicloud infrastructures.

Its portfolio includes enterprise storage systems, all-flash arrays, cloud-connected storage, object storage, and data management software. NetApp’s offerings include the ONTAP data management operating system, AFF and ASA storage systems, StorageGRID object storage, and BlueXP, a platform designed to help customers manage data and storage resources across multiple environments.