NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Upgraded at Bank of America

Bank of America upgraded shares of NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) from an underperform rating to a neutral rating in a research report report published on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Bank of America currently has $128.00 price target on the data storage provider’s stock, up from their prior price target of $121.00.

NTAP has been the subject of several other reports. Susquehanna downgraded shares of NetApp from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $155.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday, February 10th. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Northland Securities lifted their price objective on NetApp from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company increased 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. Finally, StockNews.com raised NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $137.33.

NetApp Stock Performance

NTAP opened at $124.47 on Wednesday. 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 company has a market cap of $25.31 billion, a PE ratio of 22.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.23. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $120.07 and a 200-day moving average of $121.86. NetApp has a 52-week low of $85.28 and a 52-week high of $135.45.

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

Insider Activity

In other NetApp news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 12,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.74, for a total transaction of $1,509,250.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 123,243 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,880,359.82. The trade was a 9.21 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.29, for a total value of $1,056,465.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 279,782 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,774,104.78. This represents a 2.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 60,903 shares of company stock worth $7,260,341. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of NetApp during the third quarter valued at $27,000. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Assetmark Inc. increased its position in shares of NetApp by 826.9% during the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares in the last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at about $32,000. Finally, Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. lifted its holdings 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 valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% 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.