NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Hits New 52-Week High – Time to Buy?

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday. The company traded as high as $209.28 and last traded at $209.0150, with a volume of 1316971 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $204.41.

Key NetApp News

Here are the key news stories impacting NetApp this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Oracle cloud partnership expands AI opportunity. NetApp and Oracle plan to launch a fully managed storage service that will make NetApp ONTAP capabilities available natively to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers. The offering is designed for demanding AI and enterprise workloads, potentially increasing NetApp’s recurring cloud revenue and distribution. NetApp and Oracle cloud storage announcement
• Positive Sentiment: New AI infrastructure products target rapidly expanding GPU demand. NetApp introduced Novus, an architecture designed for large AI factories and aggregate throughput of up to 100 terabytes per second, with the goal of keeping GPUs supplied with data and improving customer utilization. NetApp also announced jointly validated AI infrastructure solutions with Supermicro, combining Supermicro compute systems with NetApp storage and data management. NetApp Novus announcement NetApp and Supermicro collaboration
• Positive Sentiment: Broader ecosystem and product announcements reinforce the growth narrative. NetApp plans deeper integration with SAP Cloud Infrastructure, introduced new hybrid multi-cloud controls, and added zero-copy data activation features for agentic AI. These initiatives could help the company win enterprise workloads across on-premises, private-cloud and public-cloud environments. NetApp and SAP partnership
• Neutral Sentiment: Data-sovereignty offering may support European demand. NetApp Keystone Sovereign will give qualified European customers greater control over data location and support boundaries, a potentially meaningful feature for regulated industries, although the announcements did not provide financial targets. NetApp Keystone Sovereign announcement
• Negative Sentiment: CEO share sales and valuation create counterpoints. CEO George Kurian sold 37,000 shares for approximately $7.4 million, following additional sales earlier in September. While insider selling is not necessarily a business signal, it may weigh on sentiment. NetApp’s shares are also above the reported average analyst target of $193.86, increasing expectations for execution. NetApp CEO insider sale

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTAP has been the subject of several recent research reports. Wedbush increased their price target on shares of NetApp from $150.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on NetApp from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 3rd. UBS Group upped their price objective on NetApp from $160.00 to $171.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 3rd. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of NetApp in a report on Friday, September 4th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on NetApp from $173.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $193.86.

NetApp Stock Up 2.2%

The stock has a market capitalization of $41.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.47, a P/E/G ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.44. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $188.77 and its 200-day moving average is $151.63. The company has a current ratio of 1.24, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 2nd. The data storage provider reported $2.58 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.46. The firm had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.84 billion. NetApp had a net margin of 19.18% and a return on equity of 119.13%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 29.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.15 earnings per share. NetApp has set its FY 2027 guidance at 9.730-10.030 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 2.540-2.640 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that NetApp, Inc. will post 8.32 earnings per share for the current year.

NetApp Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 28th. Investors of record on Friday, October 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 9th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 29.34%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other NetApp news, Director Deepak Ahuja sold 3,526 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $194.04, for a total value of $684,185.04. Following the transaction, the director owned 16,264 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,155,866.56. The trade was a 17.82% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 2,608 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.48, for a total value of $533,283.84. Following the sale, the president owned 46,530 shares in the company, valued at $9,514,454.40. The trade was a 5.31% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 108,524 shares of company stock worth $21,271,576. 0.36% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. West Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth $37,000. Roble Belko & Company Inc bought a new stake in shares of NetApp during the first quarter worth $31,000. Bell Investment Advisors Inc acquired a new position in shares of NetApp during the second quarter valued at $55,000. Compass Financial Management LLC bought a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $70,000. Finally, Hilltop National Bank bought a new position in NetApp in the second quarter valued at about $72,000. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

NetApp Company Profile

NetApp, Inc develops intelligent data infrastructure and data management solutions for enterprises, service providers, and government organizations. The company helps customers store, manage, protect, and access data across on-premises environments, private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid multicloud infrastructures.

Its portfolio includes enterprise storage systems, all-flash arrays, cloud-connected storage, object storage, and data management software. NetApp’s offerings include the ONTAP data management operating system, AFF and ASA storage systems, StorageGRID object storage, and BlueXP, a platform designed to help customers manage data and storage resources across multiple environments.