12:50 PM EST, 03/01/2024 (MT Newswires) -- CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:

We lift our 12-month target to $98 from $83 on a P/E of 15x our CY 24 EPS view of $6.50, below its five-year historical average. We lift our FY 24 (Apr.) EPS to $6.42 from $6.11 and we keep FY 25's at $6.22. NTAP posted Q3 EPS of $1.94 vs. $1.37, above consensus by $0.25. Sales grew 5%, beating expectations, with Billings rising 7% driven by momentum for the all-flash array product line (+21% ARR to $3.4B). Hybrid Cloud (+6%), Product revenue (+10%), and Support revenue (+2%) also showed healthy growth. We do continue to expect some near-term headwinds in the Public Cloud segment (+1%) from unrenewed subscriptions in Q4 and NAND price increases, but gross margin expansion (+70 bps to 72.7%), driven by a favorable mix, demonstrates NTAP's ability to maintain profitability. We see upside potential from AI-driven storage demand as customers ramp up storage solutions, but competitive pressures and potential share loss remain concerns. We note NTAP's net cash of $681M and project FCF generation of $1.2B in FY 24.