World Investment Advisors LLC Purchases 459 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

World Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 6.1% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 7,998 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 459 shares during the period. World Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $988,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Blue Trust Inc. increased its holdings in NetApp by 57.9% in the 2nd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,252 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $161,000 after buying an additional 459 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates boosted its holdings in NetApp by 3.8% in the second quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 349,663 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $45,037,000 after purchasing an additional 12,856 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. grew its position in NetApp by 125.3% in the 2nd quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 84,077 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $10,829,000 after purchasing an additional 46,760 shares during the period. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp during the 2nd quarter valued at $262,000. Finally, Fifth Third Bancorp increased its position in NetApp by 28.8% during the second quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 10,386 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,338,000 after acquiring an additional 2,324 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

NetApp Stock Down 1.3 %

Shares of NTAP opened at $121.95 on Monday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $122.90 and its 200-day simple moving average is $124.04. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $83.62 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23.

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

NetApp Announces Dividend

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

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total value of $397,393.59. Following the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares in the company, valued at $1,106,096.71. This trade represents a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following 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 ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock worth $2,807,851. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on NTAP. Wedbush reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. UBS Group raised their target price on NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Barclays upped their price target on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price objective on NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $137.40.

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.