NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Price Target Raised to $106.00

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) had its price objective upped by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $92.00 to $106.00 in a research note issued on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “equal weight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective indicates a potential downside of 8.34% from the company’s current price.

Several other research firms also recently issued reports on NTAP. Argus upgraded NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Wedbush upped their price objective on NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price objective (up from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded NetApp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, NetApp presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $104.73.

NetApp Stock Up 1.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ:NTAP traded up $1.53 during trading on Thursday, hitting $115.64. 455,418 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,861,260. The stock has a market cap of $23.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.28, a P/E/G ratio of 3.75 and a beta of 1.27. NetApp has a fifty-two week low of $65.71 and a fifty-two week high of $115.93. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $104.78 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $93.59. The company has a current ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.25. The firm had revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.02 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that NetApp will post 5.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at NetApp

In related news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total transaction of $770,625.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total value of $862,240.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 261,202 shares in the company, valued at $26,496,330.88. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of NTAP. ORG Partners LLC increased its position in shares of NetApp by 14,650.0% during the fourth quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the third quarter worth $27,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its position in NetApp by 58.7% in the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 115 shares during the last quarter. Rise Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp in the first quarter valued at $27,000. Finally, J.Safra Asset Management Corp grew its position in shares of NetApp by 706.3% in the first quarter. J.Safra Asset Management Corp now owns 258 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 226 shares in the last quarter. 92.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.