NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Shares Gap Down Following Analyst Downgrade

Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP - Get Free Report) gapped down prior to trading on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on the stock from $120.00 to $115.00. The stock had previously closed at $99.21, but opened at $94.50. JPMorgan Chase & Co. currently has an overweight rating on the stock. NetApp shares last traded at $99.71, with a volume of 440,670 shares changing hands.

A number of other research firms have also commented on NTAP. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on NetApp from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. UBS Group decreased their price target on NetApp from $115.00 to $108.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Bank of America raised NetApp from an "underperform" rating to a "neutral" rating and raised their price target for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Susquehanna lowered NetApp from a "positive" rating to a "neutral" rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research note on Monday, February 10th. Finally, TD Cowen reduced their price objective on NetApp from $160.00 to $130.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $118.93.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total transaction of $1,775,594.40. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares in the company, valued at $1,075,309.20. The trade was a 62.28% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Elizabeth M. O'callahan sold 528 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.58, for a total value of $48,882.24. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 12,900 shares in the company, valued at $1,194,282. This represents a 3.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 28,724 shares of company stock worth $2,520,032 in the last three months. 0.47% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On NetApp

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC now owns 4,442 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $516,000 after acquiring an additional 80 shares during the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 2.5% in the 4th quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 3,778 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $438,000 after acquiring an additional 92 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 22.3% in the 4th quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 549 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $64,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 2,906 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $337,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC increased its holdings in shares of NetApp by 50.0% in the 4th quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC now owns 300 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $35,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

NetApp Stock Down 0.5%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 0.91. The firm has a market capitalization of $20.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.14, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.40. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $90.19 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $107.01.

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 for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.72 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The business's quarterly revenue was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.80 EPS. Research analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 3rd. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.11%. NetApp's payout ratio is currently 38.52%.

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.