Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. Increases Stock Holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 19.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 5,494 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 884 shares during the quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $484,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTAP. AE Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in NetApp in the third quarter worth $269,000. Oak Thistle LLC purchased a new position in NetApp during the third quarter valued at $255,000. Czech National Bank lifted its position in NetApp by 45.5% during the third quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 36,846 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,796,000 after buying an additional 11,523 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. lifted its position in NetApp by 7.1% during the third quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 99,680 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $7,564,000 after buying an additional 6,600 shares during the period. Finally, Handelsbanken Fonder AB lifted its position in NetApp by 2.1% during the third quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 130,849 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $9,929,000 after buying an additional 2,671 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of the business’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 completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,660,024.75. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total transaction of $1,540,050.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 144,909 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,877,807.03. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 7,500 shares of NetApp stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.75, for a total value of $770,625.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 152,409 shares in the company, valued at $15,660,024.75. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 40,371 shares of company stock worth $4,139,505 in the last three months. 0.37% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

NetApp Price Performance

NASDAQ NTAP opened at $101.33 on Friday. NetApp, Inc. has a one year low of $61.54 and a one year high of $112.48. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $100.21 and a 200 day moving average of $89.36. The company has a market capitalization of $20.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.03, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.15.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.94 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.25. The company had revenue of $1.61 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.59 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 109.49% and a net margin of 15.21%. NetApp’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.02 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that NetApp, Inc. will post 5.16 EPS for the current 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 paid 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 dividend yield of 1.97%. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 45.45%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTAP has been the subject of several recent research reports. StockNews.com lowered NetApp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. TD Cowen raised their price objective on NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Citigroup raised their price objective on NetApp from $90.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price target (up from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Argus upgraded NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, March 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $100.60.

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.