BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. Cuts Stake in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. lowered its holdings in shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 7.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 236,556 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 20,377 shares during the quarter. BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. owned approximately 0.11% of NetApp worth $20,855,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. ORG Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 14,650.0% in the 4th quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 295 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 58.7% in the 4th quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 311 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 115 shares during the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its stake in shares of NetApp by 82.9% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 150 shares during the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Finally, Planned Solutions Inc. bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently issued reports on NTAP. TD Cowen raised their price objective on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Evercore ISI raised their price target on NetApp from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group raised their price target on NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Finally, Wedbush lifted their target price on NetApp from $85.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. 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. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $100.60.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NetApp news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total transaction of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 9,601 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $989,095.02. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 871 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $103.02, for a total value of $89,730.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 9,601 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $989,095.02. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.16, for a total value of $876,860.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 252,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,068,738.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 40,371 shares of company stock valued at $4,139,505. 0.37% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

NetApp Stock Up 1.6 %

NTAP stock traded up $1.81 on Monday, hitting $112.28. 2,097,466 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,879,195. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $65.71 and a 12-month high of $112.48. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $104.16 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $92.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.15. The stock has a market cap of $23.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.54, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 1.27.

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

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 5th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 4th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.78%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 45.45%.

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.