NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Stock Crosses Below 50-Day Moving Average – Time to Sell?

by · The Markets Daily

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP – Get Free Report)’s share price crossed below its fifty day moving average during trading on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $205.17 and traded as low as $195.58. NetApp shares last traded at $199.18, with a volume of 2,563,000 shares.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently commented on NTAP shares. Argus set a $225.00 price target on shares of NetApp and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 11th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of NetApp from $173.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 3rd. UBS Group boosted their target price on NetApp from $160.00 to $171.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 3rd. Citigroup cut their target price on NetApp from $209.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, September 3rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on NetApp from $175.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have issued a Buy rating and ten have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $205.24.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on NTAP

NetApp Trading Down 8.8%

The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $205.17 and its 200 day moving average price is $150.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 1.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $39.12 billion, a PE ratio of 28.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.46.

NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 2nd. The data storage provider reported $2.58 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.12 by $0.46. The company had revenue of $2.02 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.84 billion. NetApp had a return on equity of 119.13% and a net margin of 19.18%. NetApp’s quarterly revenue was up 29.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.15 EPS. NetApp has set its FY 2027 guidance at 9.730-10.030 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 2.540-2.640 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that NetApp, Inc. will post 8.32 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NetApp Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 9th were issued a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, October 9th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.0%. NetApp’s payout ratio is currently 29.34%.

Insider Transactions at NetApp

In other news, CEO George Kurian sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $210.04, for a total transaction of $2,100,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 208,537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $43,801,111.48. This trade represents a 4.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Thomas Nevens sold 5,940 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $195.21, for a total transaction of $1,159,547.40. Following the transaction, the director owned 7,747 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,512,291.87. This represents a 43.40% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders have sold 173,524 shares of company stock worth $35,018,126. Insiders own 0.36% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of NetApp

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in NetApp in the second quarter valued at $2,925,168,000. Primecap Management Co. CA purchased a new position in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth $1,395,423,000. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its holdings in shares of NetApp by 9.4% during the 2nd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 4,444,057 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $687,762,000 after purchasing an additional 383,701 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP increased its position in shares of NetApp by 127.0% during the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 3,658,066 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $374,549,000 after purchasing an additional 2,046,912 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in shares of NetApp during the 2nd quarter worth about $258,093,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.17% of the company’s stock.

NetApp Company Profile

(Get Free Report)

NetApp, Inc is a data infrastructure and cloud storage company that helps organizations manage, protect and access data across on-premises data centers, public clouds and hybrid environments. Its offerings support enterprise applications, artificial intelligence workloads, business analytics, backup and disaster recovery.

The company’s portfolio includes all-flash and hybrid-flash storage systems, the ONTAP data management operating system, StorageGRID object storage and Keystone storage-as-a-service.

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