Golden State Wealth Management LLC Makes New Investment in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Golden State Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 300 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $35,000.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC acquired a new position in shares of NetApp in the third quarter worth $27,000. True Wealth Design LLC lifted its holdings in NetApp by 2,833.3% in the 3rd quarter. True Wealth Design LLC now owns 352 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 340 shares in the last quarter. Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new position in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at $44,000. Finally, Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at about $51,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently commented on NTAP shares. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on shares of NetApp in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. They issued a “market perform” rating on the stock. Susquehanna cut shares of NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $115.00 to $121.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities lifted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NetApp presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $137.53.

NetApp Price Performance

NetApp stock opened at $119.56 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $24.31 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.98, a P/E/G ratio of 2.94 and a beta of 1.23. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $120.98 and its 200 day moving average is $122.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $83.80 and a one year high of $135.45.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.65 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.23 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.89 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 38.24%.

Insider Activity

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 451 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $116.79, for a total transaction of $52,672.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 12,005 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,402,063.95. The trade was a 3.62 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 326 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.44, for a total value of $38,285.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 64,110 shares of company stock worth $7,632,601. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

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.