3Chopt Investment Partners LLC Acquires New Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

3Chopt Investment Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 5,362 shares of the data storage provider's stock, valued at approximately $471,000.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,443,974 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $3,069,617,000 after acquiring an additional 429,343 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 14.5% during the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $815,402,000 after purchasing an additional 888,671 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 20.4% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,123,228 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $362,544,000 after purchasing an additional 529,471 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 8.0% during the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 2,986,330 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $346,653,000 after purchasing an additional 220,393 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Beutel Goodman & Co Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Beutel Goodman & Co Ltd. now owns 2,887,795 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $335,215,000 after buying an additional 12,919 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target 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. Wedbush reiterated a "neutral" rating and issued a $110.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Citigroup increased their price objective on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Finally, Loop Capital lowered their price objective on NetApp from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $117.79.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.83, for a total value of $695,555.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 249,765 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,438,269.95. The trade was a 3.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.77, for a total value of $29,828.54. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 455 shares in the company, valued at $44,940.35. The trade was a 39.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 17,302 shares of company stock valued at $1,590,514 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company's stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $105.72 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $21.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.61, a P/E/G ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $71.84 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The stock's 50-day moving average is $98.07 and its 200 day moving average is $104.16.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $1.73 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.72 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 18.05% and a return on equity of 126.96%. The business's revenue was up 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.80 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.97%. NetApp's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 36.62%.

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.

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