Paloma Partners Management Co Acquires Shares of 5,974 NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Paloma Partners Management Co acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 5,974 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $627,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 57.5% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 5,643,780 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $497,556,000 after acquiring an additional 2,059,574 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at $232,502,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 48.3% during the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,375,366 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $249,307,000 after acquiring an additional 773,773 shares during the period. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 254.8% during the first quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 2,304,512 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $241,905,000 after acquiring an additional 1,654,942 shares during the period. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 26.5% during the first quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 2,148,540 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $225,532,000 after acquiring an additional 450,263 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

NetApp Trading Down 0.9 %

NTAP traded down $1.16 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $124.99. The stock had a trading volume of 1,032,124 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,949,738. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $125.28 and its 200-day simple moving average is $107.53. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.74, a current ratio of 1.19 and a quick ratio of 1.15. The firm has a market capitalization of $25.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.11 and a beta of 1.27. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $70.82 and a 1-year high of $135.01.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.80 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.48 by $0.32. The company had revenue of $1.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 15.73% and a return on equity of 114.54%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.20 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, May 30th that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the data storage provider to repurchase up to 4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

NetApp Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 5th were issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, July 5th. This is a positive change from NetApp’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.66%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 44.83%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $133.07, for a total transaction of $60,147.64. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,886 shares in the company, valued at $1,581,670.02. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.36, for a total value of $1,108,060.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 314,274 shares in the company, valued at approximately $40,968,758.64. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 452 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $133.07, for a total transaction of $60,147.64. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 11,886 shares in the company, valued at $1,581,670.02. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 41,786 shares of company stock worth $5,395,146 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have commented on NTAP shares. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of NetApp from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 21st. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $120.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Argus increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of NetApp from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the company from $95.00 to $125.00 in a research note on Friday, May 31st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $135.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $117.81.

NetApp 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.