KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC) Rating Lowered to “Hold” at StockNews.com

KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC) was downgraded by equities research analysts at StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a note issued to investors on Wednesday.

A number of other brokerages have also recently weighed in on KLAC. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price objective on KLA from $890.00 to $750.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on KLA from $760.00 to $725.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. UBS Group dropped their target price on KLA from $900.00 to $765.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Oppenheimer raised KLA from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $750.00 to $850.00 in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on KLA from $800.00 to $750.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $815.55.

KLA Stock Performance

NASDAQ KLAC traded up $0.67 on Wednesday, reaching $632.14. The stock had a trading volume of 942,634 shares, compared to its average volume of 971,903. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.65, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 2.13. KLA has a 12-month low of $527.11 and a 12-month high of $896.32. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $704.38 and its 200 day moving average price is $758.96. The stock has a market cap of $84.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 1.29.

KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The semiconductor company reported $7.33 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.03 by $0.30. KLA had a return on equity of 105.16% and a net margin of 28.92%. The company had revenue of $2.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.75 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $5.74 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that KLA will post 30.91 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of KLA

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Swedbank AB grew its holdings in KLA by 0.4% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 550,949 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $426,660,000 after purchasing an additional 2,019 shares during the last quarter. Community Financial Services Group LLC lifted its position in shares of KLA by 538.5% in the third quarter. Community Financial Services Group LLC now owns 7,445 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $5,765,000 after acquiring an additional 6,279 shares in the last quarter. Eastern Bank lifted its position in shares of KLA by 655.8% in the third quarter. Eastern Bank now owns 27,368 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $21,194,000 after acquiring an additional 23,747 shares in the last quarter. ING Groep NV lifted its position in shares of KLA by 52.4% in the third quarter. ING Groep NV now owns 79,763 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $61,769,000 after acquiring an additional 27,436 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Generate Investment Management Ltd lifted its position in shares of KLA by 39.0% in the third quarter. Generate Investment Management Ltd now owns 5,882 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $4,555,000 after acquiring an additional 1,651 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.65% of the company’s stock.

About KLA

KLA Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, manufacture, and marketing of process control, process-enabling, and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related electronics industries worldwide. It operates through three segments: Semiconductor Process Control; Specialty Semiconductor Process; and PCB and Component Inspection.