Element Capital Management LLC Takes Position in NetApp, Inc. $NTAP

Key Points

• Element Capital Management LLC has acquired 29,407 shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP), valued at approximately $2.58 million, signaling growing institutional interest in the company.
• Analysts have set varying price targets for NetApp, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. raising the target to $130.00, while others have set lower estimates, indicating mixed expectations for the company's stock performance.
• NetApp recently reported a quarterly earnings per share of $1.93, exceeding expectations, and a year-over-year revenue growth of 3.8%, reflecting a stable financial outlook for the firm.

Element Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 29,407 shares of the data storage provider's stock, valued at approximately $2,583,000.

Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Manchester Capital Management LLC grew its position in NetApp by 375.0% during the first quarter. Manchester Capital Management LLC now owns 285 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 225 shares during the period. Olde Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp during the first quarter valued at about $29,000. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 54.9% during the first quarter. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. now owns 350 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 124 shares during the last quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 929.6% during the fourth quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 278 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 50.0% during the fourth quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 300 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday, July 17th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday, May 30th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reaffirmed a "cautious" rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $119.21.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.77, for a total transaction of $29,828.54. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 455 shares in the company, valued at $44,940.35. The trade was a 39.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O'callahan sold 1,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.90, for a total value of $105,900.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 23,251 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,462,280.90. This represents a 4.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 19,302 shares of company stock worth $2,026,379 in the last three months. 0.28% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

NetApp Stock Down 1.0%

NetApp stock traded down $1.0410 on Wednesday, hitting $108.1190. 1,376,008 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,021,716. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39. The firm has a market cap of $21.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 1.44. The business's fifty day simple moving average is $105.42 and its 200 day simple moving average is $100.65. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $71.84 and a 1 year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.03. NetApp had a return on equity of 126.96% and a net margin of 18.05%.The firm had revenue of $1.73 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.72 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.80 EPS. NetApp's quarterly revenue was up 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. NetApp has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.600-7.900 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at 1.480-1.580 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, July 3rd. NetApp's payout ratio is currently 36.62%.

NetApp Company 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.