Cerity Partners LLC Purchases 10,033 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Cerity Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Free Report) by 204.0% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 14,952 shares of the data storage provider's stock after buying an additional 10,033 shares during the quarter. Cerity Partners LLC's holdings in NetApp were worth $1,318,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in NetApp by 65.8% during the fourth quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 88,615 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $7,812,000 after purchasing an additional 35,172 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its stake in NetApp by 26.1% during the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 317,073 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $27,855,000 after purchasing an additional 65,644 shares during the last quarter. Vest Financial LLC lifted its stake in NetApp by 24.1% during the fourth quarter. Vest Financial LLC now owns 147,518 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $13,005,000 after purchasing an additional 28,609 shares during the last quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in NetApp by 2.2% during the third quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 86,556 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $6,568,000 after purchasing an additional 1,875 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. bought a new stake in NetApp during the third quarter worth $1,171,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Wedbush increased their price target on NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Citigroup increased their price target on NetApp from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $120.00 price target (up from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group increased their price target on NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Finally, StockNews.com cut NetApp from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, March 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $100.60.

NetApp Trading Down 2.2 %

NetApp stock traded down $2.19 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $97.95. 1,692,490 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,283,203. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00. The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $98.99 and its 200 day simple moving average is $88.61. NetApp, Inc. has a twelve month low of $60.92 and a twelve month high of $112.48. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.21 billion, a PE ratio of 22.26, a PEG ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.25. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The firm had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.59 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.02 EPS. The business's revenue was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 4th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.04%. NetApp's payout ratio is currently 45.45%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total value of $862,240.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 261,202 shares of the company's stock, valued at $26,496,330.88. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.37% 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.