Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) Lowered to Buy at StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning.

Separately, Northland Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Photronics from $18.00 to $21.00 in a research note on Thursday, May 25th.

Photronics Stock Down 5.9 %

Shares of PLAB opened at $20.61 on Thursday. Photronics has a 12 month low of $13.86 and a 12 month high of $26.98. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $24.62 and its 200-day moving average is $20.29. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.29 billion, a PE ratio of 10.73 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a current ratio of 4.05, a quick ratio of 3.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02.

Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $224.20 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $230.00 million. Photronics had a net margin of 13.48% and a return on equity of 10.72%. The business’s revenue was up 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.51 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Photronics will post 2 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Photronics

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in PLAB. Raymond James & Associates acquired a new stake in Photronics in the first quarter valued at approximately $219,000. Citigroup Inc. boosted its position in Photronics by 2.1% in the first quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 61,988 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,052,000 after buying an additional 1,281 shares in the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC boosted its position in Photronics by 53.6% in the first quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 32,418 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $550,000 after buying an additional 11,313 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS boosted its position in Photronics by 15.0% in the first quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 53,138 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $902,000 after buying an additional 6,920 shares in the last quarter. Finally, BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in Photronics by 0.8% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 9,805,463 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $166,400,000 after buying an additional 78,778 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.44% of the company’s stock.

Photronics Company Profile

Photronics, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of photomask products and services in the United States, Taiwan, China, Korea, Europe, and internationally. The company offers photomasks that are used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and flat panel displays (FPDs); and to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers, FDP substrates, and various types of electrical and optical components.