Principal Financial Group Inc. Sells 12,094 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Principal Financial Group Inc. reduced its position in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) by 4.1% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 282,215 shares of the data storage provider's stock after selling 12,094 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned about 0.14% of NetApp worth $24,790,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Assetmark Inc. lifted its position in shares of NetApp by 826.9% in the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares in the last quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. raised its position in shares of NetApp by 929.6% in 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 period. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC increased its position in NetApp by 50.0% during the fourth quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 300 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the period. Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, OFI Invest Asset Management bought a new position in NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at about $39,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have issued reports on NTAP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $115.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 30th. Barclays raised their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Morgan Stanley reiterated a "cautious" rating on shares of NetApp in a research note on Tuesday, May 20th. UBS Group dropped their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Monday, June 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $117.79.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 directly owned 249,765 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $20,438,269.95. This trade represents a 3.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale 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 NetApp stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 455 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,940.35. This represents 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 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company's stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded up $0.01 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $106.67. 1,201,899 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,919,188. The stock has a market capitalization of $21.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.78, a PEG ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.42. The business's fifty day moving average is $101.00 and its 200-day moving average is $103.47. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $71.84 and a one year high of $135.45. 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 (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates 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 period last year, the company posted $1.80 EPS. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 3rd. NetApp's payout ratio is presently 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.