Teacher Retirement System of Texas Sells 374,465 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Teacher Retirement System of Texas reduced its stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) by 56.9% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 283,748 shares of the data storage provider's stock after selling 374,465 shares during the quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas owned 0.14% of NetApp worth $24,924,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Assetmark Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 826.9% in the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares in the last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. boosted its position in NetApp by 929.6% during the 4th quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 278 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $32,000 after acquiring an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC boosted its position in NetApp by 50.0% during the 4th 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 last quarter. Finally, Park Square Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter worth approximately $36,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the topic of a number of research reports. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Evercore ISI cut their price target on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $100.00 and set an "in-line" rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 28th. Morgan Stanley restated a "cautious" rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Tuesday, May 20th. Wedbush reaffirmed a "neutral" rating and issued a $110.00 target price on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, May 30th. Finally, UBS Group decreased 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. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $117.79.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.83, for a total transaction of $695,555.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 249,765 shares in the company, 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 302 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 3rd. The shares were 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 owned 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 17,302 shares of company stock worth $1,590,514 in the last ninety days. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

NetApp Stock Down 0.1%

NTAP opened at $107.48 on Friday. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is $99.90 and its 200 day simple moving average is $103.83. NetApp, Inc. has a 1-year low of $71.84 and a 1-year high of $135.45. The stock has a market cap of $21.53 billion, a PE ratio of 18.92, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.48 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 (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last released 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. 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 company's quarterly revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.80 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

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 dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.94%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend 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.

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