Lord Abbett & CO. LLC Lowers Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Lord Abbett & CO. LLC lowered its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 42.3% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 602,967 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 442,579 shares during the quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC owned 0.30% of NetApp worth $74,472,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp raised its holdings in NetApp by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after buying an additional 199,384 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of NetApp by 8.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,985,673 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $738,280,000 after acquiring an additional 453,324 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 17.5% in the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after acquiring an additional 416,233 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of NetApp by 12.8% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $223,806,000 after purchasing an additional 196,952 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on NetApp from $146.00 to $147.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Bank of America increased their target price on NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. UBS Group lifted their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Northland Securities raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” 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 assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.40.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total value of $88,971.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,475,782.80. This represents a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total value of $1,071,935.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 292,778 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 2.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock opened at $121.95 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $24.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.42, a PEG ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $122.90 and a 200 day moving average price of $123.99. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $83.62 and a 12 month high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.65 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.71%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.24%.

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.