NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Has Consensus Target Price of $213.20

Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the nineteen analysts that are covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, eight have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price target among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $213.20.

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Cantor Fitzgerald raised NetApp to an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 7th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $240.00 price target on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, October 6th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $173.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. Evercore raised shares of NetApp from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 7th. Finally, Wedbush raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $150.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 3rd.

NetApp Trading Up 1.4%

NetApp stock opened at $215.48 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $202.99 and a 200 day simple moving average of $167.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.39, a PEG ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a current ratio of 1.24. NetApp has a 52 week low of $93.69 and a 52 week high of $240.87.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. NetApp had a return on equity of 119.13% and a net margin of 19.18%. The firm had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.84 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.15 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 29.9% compared to the same quarter last year. NetApp has set its FY 2027 guidance at 9.730-10.030 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 2.540-2.640 EPS. Analysts expect that NetApp will post 8.32 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $209.95, for a total transaction of $10,497,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 218,537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,881,843.15. This trade represents a 18.62% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Carrie Palin sold 5,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $216.43, for a total value of $1,082,150.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 6,660 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,441,423.80. The trade was a 42.88% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 173,524 shares of company stock valued at $35,018,126 in the last ninety days. 0.36% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Leeward Financial Partners LLC acquired a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter worth about $212,000. Sigma Planning Corp bought a new position in NetApp in the third quarter valued at about $1,345,000. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC raised its position in NetApp by 6.2% in the third quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 2,327 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $489,000 after purchasing an additional 136 shares during the last quarter. Signaturefd LLC boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 7.8% during the third quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 5,014 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,053,000 after purchasing an additional 362 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI boosted its stake in shares of NetApp by 23.2% during the third quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 2,508 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $527,000 after purchasing an additional 472 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Company Profile

NetApp, Inc is a data infrastructure and cloud storage company that helps organizations manage, protect and access data across on-premises data centers, public clouds and hybrid environments. Its offerings support enterprise applications, artificial intelligence workloads, business analytics, backup and disaster recovery.

The company’s portfolio includes all-flash and hybrid-flash storage systems, the ONTAP data management operating system, StorageGRID object storage and Keystone storage-as-a-service.