Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC Grows Position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC increased its position in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 15.8% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 86,709 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 11,831 shares during the quarter. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $10,268,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 10,261,170 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,267,357,000 after purchasing an additional 199,384 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 17.5% in the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $359,517,000 after purchasing an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 3.5% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $309,811,000 after purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 12.8% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,737,578 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $223,806,000 after purchasing an additional 196,952 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 59.6% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $211,637,000 after purchasing an additional 613,583 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on NTAP. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on NetApp from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Oppenheimer began coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. They set a “market perform” rating for the company. Barclays lifted their price objective on NetApp from $119.00 to $132.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on shares of NetApp in a research note on Monday, August 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $137.40.

NetApp Stock Performance

Shares of NTAP opened at $131.11 on Friday. 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 $83.62 and a one year high of $135.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $26.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.10, a PEG ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.23. The business has a fifty day moving average of $122.84 and a 200 day moving average of $123.72.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 21st. The data storage provider reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. NetApp had a return on equity of 123.63% and a net margin of 17.78%. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.65 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.23 earnings per share. NetApp’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.83 EPS for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.59%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 38.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Thomas Michael Nevens sold 3,333 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.23, for a total transaction of $397,393.59. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 9,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,106,096.71. The trade was a 26.43 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Lorenzo Daniel De sold 1,685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.60, for a total value of $208,266.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 23,049 shares of company stock valued at $2,807,851. Company insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Company 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.