iA Global Asset Management Inc. Grows Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

iA Global Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) by 14.3% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 28,368 shares of the data storage provider's stock after acquiring an additional 3,550 shares during the quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc.'s holdings in NetApp were worth $2,492,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its stake in shares of NetApp by 39.6% in the first quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 36,998 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $3,250,000 after acquiring an additional 10,494 shares during the last quarter. Achmea Investment Management B.V. lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 55.8% in 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 buying an additional 79,457 shares in the last quarter. 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. purchased a new position in NetApp in the 1st quarter worth approximately $13,483,000. Finally, Hennessy Advisors Inc. bought a new position in NetApp in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $2,050,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

NTAP has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 30th. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Monday, June 2nd. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Finally, Wedbush reaffirmed a "neutral" rating and issued a $110.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, May 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $118.86.

NetApp Price Performance

Shares of NTAP traded up $2.36 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $106.21. The stock had a trading volume of 1,275,301 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,491,817. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.39, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.25. NetApp, Inc. has a 12 month low of $71.84 and a 12 month high of $135.45. The business has a fifty day moving average of $104.68 and a 200 day moving average of $101.49. The firm has a market cap of $21.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.70, a PEG ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 1.44.

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

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, July 3rd were given 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 2.0%. NetApp's dividend payout ratio is currently 36.62%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 455 shares in the company, valued at $44,940.35. This trade represents a 39.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O'callahan sold 1,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $106.84, for a total value of $106,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 24,251 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,590,976.84. The trade was a 3.96% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 18,302 shares of company stock worth $1,920,479. 0.28% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.