Smithbridge Asset Management Inc. DE Acquires Shares of 6,556 NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Smithbridge Asset Management Inc. DE bought a new position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 6,556 shares of the data storage provider's stock, valued at approximately $576,000.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in NTAP. Savant Capital LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 9.6% in the 4th quarter. Savant Capital LLC now owns 6,987 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $811,000 after buying an additional 614 shares during the period. Avestar Capital LLC lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 27.5% in the 4th quarter. Avestar Capital LLC now owns 3,524 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $409,000 after buying an additional 761 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 7.2% in the 4th quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 123,651 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $14,462,000 after buying an additional 8,322 shares during the period. Banque Pictet & Cie SA purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter worth $4,329,000. Finally, AustralianSuper Pty Ltd lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 27.4% during the 4th quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd now owns 639,518 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $74,235,000 after purchasing an additional 137,430 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on NTAP shares. Wedbush restated a "neutral" rating and set a $110.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, May 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on NetApp from $120.00 to $115.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Morgan Stanley restated a "cautious" rating on shares of NetApp in a research note on Tuesday, May 20th. UBS Group decreased their price objective 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, Barclays upped their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $117.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Friday, May 30th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $117.79.

Insider Activity

In related news, 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 transaction of $29,828.54. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 455 shares of the company's stock, valued at $44,940.35. This trade represents a 39.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total value of $1,775,594.40. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,075,309.20. This trade represents a 62.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 28,498 shares of company stock valued at $2,500,978. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company's stock.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP stock traded down $2.45 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $100.49. The stock had a trading volume of 3,515,887 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,935,111. The business's fifty day moving average is $93.26 and its 200-day moving average is $105.95. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39. The firm has a market cap of $20.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.47, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.42. 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 announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.93 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.72 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company's revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.80 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.07%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 3rd. NetApp's dividend 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.