Merit Financial Group LLC Buys 1,405 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Merit Financial Group LLC boosted its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 19.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,479 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,405 shares during the period. Merit Financial Group LLC’s holdings in NetApp were worth $748,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. ORG Partners LLC grew its stake in 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 buying an additional 293 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 58.7% during 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 in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. grew its position in shares of NetApp by 82.9% during 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 in the last quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 3rd quarter valued at $27,000. Finally, Planned Solutions Inc. purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. 92.17% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

NetApp Price Performance

NTAP stock opened at $107.95 on Tuesday. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $62.29 and a 1 year high of $112.48. The company has a market cap of $22.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.53, a PEG ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.27. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $102.29 and a 200 day moving average of $90.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 1.11.

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

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced 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. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.85%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is 45.45%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on NTAP. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price target (up from $105.00) on shares of NetApp in a research report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of NetApp from $93.00 to $96.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Argus upgraded shares of NetApp from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $130.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, March 4th. TD Cowen upped their target price on shares of NetApp from $100.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. Finally, Raymond James reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of NetApp in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, NetApp currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $100.60.

Insider Buying and Selling at NetApp

In other NetApp news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total transaction of $862,240.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 261,202 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,496,330.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, CEO George Kurian sold 8,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.44, for a total transaction of $862,240.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 261,202 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,496,330.88. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Michael J. Berry sold 15,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.67, for a total value of $1,540,050.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 144,909 shares in the company, valued at $14,877,807.03. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 40,371 shares of company stock valued at $4,139,505. Corporate insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

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.