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Piper Jaffray Downgrades NetApp (NTAP) to Neutral

March 23, 2015 6:37 AM EDT
Get Alerts NTAP Hot Sheet
Price: $105.40 +0.17%

Rating Summary:
    20 Buy, 29 Hold, 6 Sell

Rating Trend: = Flat

Today's Overall Ratings:
    Up: 13 | Down: 10 | New: 10
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Piper Jaffray downgraded NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) from Overweight to Neutral with a price target of $36.00 (from $42.00) citing increasing competitive pressures.

Analyst Andrew Nowinski commented, "We are downgrading shares of NTAP to Neutral and lowering our price target to $36 ($42 prior), based on 12.5x CY16 EPS (13.5x prior). We believe NetApp is facing increasing pressure from next-gen storage vendors and public cloud providers, both of which could have a meaningful impact on revenue and earnings growth. We also believe NetApp will be forced to increase investments in Sales & Marketing in order to offset this pressure, which will result in a significant reduction in earnings growth over the next two years. As such, we are lowering our revenue and EPS estimates for FY16 and FY17 modestly below consensus, reflecting these concerns."

The firm cut FY 2016 EPS from $2.95 to $2.78 and FY 2017 EPS from $3.21 to $2.92.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on NetApp click here. For more ratings news on NetApp click here.

Shares of NetApp closed at $37.32 yesterday.



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