Seizert Capital Partners LLC Has $56.38 Million Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Seizert Capital Partners LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.0% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 456,444 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,944 shares during the period. NetApp accounts for 2.5% of Seizert Capital Partners LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 8th biggest position. Seizert Capital Partners LLC owned about 0.22% of NetApp worth $56,375,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of NetApp by 17.5% during the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,791,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,517,000 after acquiring an additional 416,233 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in NetApp by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,405,363 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $309,811,000 after purchasing an additional 82,378 shares during the last quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. boosted its stake in NetApp by 11.9% in the 1st quarter. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. now owns 1,982,787 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $208,133,000 after purchasing an additional 211,204 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in 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 buying an additional 196,952 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position in NetApp by 59.6% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,643,146 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $211,637,000 after buying an additional 613,583 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of NetApp from $138.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of NetApp from $120.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 12th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of NetApp from $121.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Oppenheimer initiated coverage on NetApp in a research note on Wednesday. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on NetApp from $116.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, NetApp has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $129.06.

NetApp Stock Performance

NetApp stock opened at $117.21 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.91, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. The stock has a market cap of $24.00 billion, a PE ratio of 22.89, a P/E/G ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.24. NetApp, Inc. has a 12-month low of $76.41 and a 12-month high of $135.01. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $121.17 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $121.96.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.45 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 17.01% and a return on equity of 121.41%. The firm’s revenue was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.84 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 4th were given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 4th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.77%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is presently 40.63%.

Insider Activity

In related news, EVP Elizabeth M. O’callahan sold 705 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $88,971.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 11,694 shares in the company, valued at $1,475,782.80. This trade represents a 5.69 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.11, for a total transaction of $1,071,935.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 292,778 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,922,233.58. This trade represents a 2.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 10,890 shares of company stock valued at $1,369,172. 0.47% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.