Ironwood Investment Counsel LLC Boosts Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Ironwood Investment Counsel LLC boosted its stake in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 3.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 10,491 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 352 shares during the quarter. Ironwood Investment Counsel LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,218,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of NTAP. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Assetmark Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 826.9% during the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter worth about $32,000. Golden State Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Finally, OFI Invest Asset Management bought a new stake in NetApp in the 4th quarter worth approximately $39,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the topic of several analyst reports. Citigroup cut their target price on NetApp from $135.00 to $110.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of NetApp from $160.00 to $153.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on NetApp from $140.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Wedbush reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $110.00 price target (down from $120.00) on shares of NetApp in a research note on Friday, February 28th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded NetApp from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $121.00 to $128.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $129.07.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 528 shares of the business’s 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 completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 12,900 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,194,282. The trade was a 3.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.04, for a total value of $1,011,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 266,765 shares in the company, valued at $31,755,705.60. This trade represents a 3.09 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 61,431 shares of company stock worth $7,309,224. Corporate insiders own 0.47% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Stock Down 1.6 %

Shares of NASDAQ NTAP opened at $90.06 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. The company has a market capitalization of $18.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.56, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $115.43 and a 200-day simple moving average of $119.48. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $89.88 and a 1 year high of $135.45.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend 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.