Piper Jaffray Reiterates Overweight, $53 PT on NetApp

Piper Jaffray maintains its Overweight rating and $53 price target on NetApp

as it highlights the company's 2011 and looks forward to 2012. Piper Jaffray says, "2011 proved to be a very difficult year for shareholders of NTAP, with the stock down 34% YTD, whereas EMC has only declined 5% YTD. We believe the significant outperformance by EMC was largely driven by the fact they launched 41 new products in January, the largest product launch in company history. Over the last 11 years, NTAP has only underperformed EMC in 3 of the 11 years, but outperformed EMC in 4 of the last 11 years by a factor of at least 2x. We believe NTAP is well positioned for outperformance in 2012 based on three new product cycles the company has (ONTAP 8.1, FAS2240 and Engenio)." NTAP closed at $36.51 per share on Friday.