BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. Sells 56,897 Shares of NetApp, Inc. $NTAP

Key Points

• BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. reduced its stake in NetApp, Inc. by 11.6%, selling 56,897 shares and now holding 434,709 shares valued at approximately $38.2 million.
• Several institutional investors, including Assenagon Asset Management and Achmea Investment Management, increased their holdings in NetApp, which is now 92.17% owned by institutional investors.
• NetApp's recent quarterly earnings surpassed expectations, reporting $1.93 EPS against a consensus estimate of $1.90, leading to a revenue of $1.73 billion for the quarter.

BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. trimmed its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) by 11.6% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 434,709 shares of the data storage provider's stock after selling 56,897 shares during the quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. owned 0.21% of NetApp worth $38,184,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its holdings in NetApp by 39.6% during the 1st quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 36,998 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $3,250,000 after buying an additional 10,494 shares in the last quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 55.8% during the first quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. now owns 221,907 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $19,492,000 after acquiring an additional 79,457 shares during the period. Burns Matteson Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the first quarter valued at approximately $321,000. UNICOM Systems Inc. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the first quarter valued at approximately $13,483,000. Finally, Hennessy Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at approximately $2,050,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on NTAP shares. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Morgan Stanley reissued a "cautious" rating on shares of NetApp in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. UBS Group cut their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Finally, Evercore ISI dropped their target price on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an "in-line" rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $119.21.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $108.79 on Monday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $105.17 and a two-hundred day moving average of $100.68. The company has a quick ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $71.84 and a twelve month high of $135.45. The company has a market cap of $21.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 1.44.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 prior year, the business posted $1.80 EPS. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O'callahan sold 1,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.90, for a total transaction 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. The trade was a 4.12% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $108.08, for a total transaction of $918,680.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 288,305 shares in the company, valued at $31,160,004.40. The trade was a 2.86% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 19,302 shares of company stock worth $2,026,379. Insiders own 0.28% of the company's stock.

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.

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