Shell Asset Management Co. Sells 466 Shares of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP)

Shell Asset Management Co. lessened its holdings in NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) by 2.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 15,599 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 466 shares during the quarter. Shell Asset Management Co.’s holdings in NetApp were worth $1,811,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of NTAP. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of NetApp in the fourth quarter valued at about $306,440,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its position in NetApp by 14.5% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 7,024,456 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $815,402,000 after purchasing an additional 888,671 shares during the period. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. lifted its position in NetApp by 5,858.0% during the fourth quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 895,435 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,942,000 after purchasing an additional 880,406 shares during the period. Boston Partners lifted its position in NetApp by 53.9% during the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,083,189 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $241,867,000 after purchasing an additional 729,394 shares during the period. Finally, KBC Group NV lifted its position in NetApp by 276.9% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 891,033 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $103,431,000 after purchasing an additional 654,626 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently weighed in on NTAP. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of NetApp to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on shares of NetApp from $130.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. StockNews.com cut shares of NetApp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on shares of NetApp from $153.00 to $113.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Finally, Barclays raised shares of NetApp from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $115.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $124.07.

NetApp Stock Performance

NetApp stock opened at $100.53 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $88.80 and a 200-day moving average of $108.46. NetApp, Inc. has a 1 year low of $71.84 and a 1 year high of $135.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The company has a market capitalization of $20.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.48, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.40.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.07%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, April 4th. NetApp’s dividend payout ratio is currently 38.52%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Anders Gustafsson bought 2,800 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 27th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $91.00 per share, with a total value of $254,800.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 6,348 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $577,668. This trade represents a 78.92% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, President Cesar Cernuda sold 19,696 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.15, for a total transaction of $1,775,594.40. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 11,928 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,075,309.20. This represents a 62.28% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 37,224 shares of company stock valued at $3,531,872 over the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.