Needham & Company LLC Reiterates “Buy” Rating for Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT)

Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reiterated by Needham & Company LLC in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $195.00 target price on the manufacturing equipment provider’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 17.77% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities research analysts have also weighed in on AMAT. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Applied Materials from $235.00 to $195.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. Barclays reduced their target price on Applied Materials from $190.00 to $160.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 22nd. KeyCorp upgraded Applied Materials from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $225.00 target price for the company in a report on Friday, January 17th. Cantor Fitzgerald reduced their target price on Applied Materials from $220.00 to $200.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Applied Materials from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $195.00 target price for the company in a report on Friday, March 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and seventeen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $199.48.

Applied Materials Trading Down 5.3%

Shares of NASDAQ AMAT opened at $165.57 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $134.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.64, a PEG ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 1.71. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $149.19 and a 200 day simple moving average of $165.35. Applied Materials has a 52 week low of $123.74 and a 52 week high of $255.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 1.96 and a current ratio of 2.67.

Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 15th. The manufacturing equipment provider reported $2.39 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.31 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $7.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $7.12 billion. Applied Materials had a return on equity of 39.50% and a net margin of 22.95%. On average, research analysts predict that Applied Materials will post 9.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Applied Materials declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, March 10th that permits the company to repurchase $10.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the manufacturing equipment provider to purchase up to 8.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity at Applied Materials

In other Applied Materials news, CAO Adam Sanders sold 450 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $144.83, for a total value of $65,173.50. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 6,077 shares in the company, valued at $880,131.91. This represents a 6.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Gary E. Dickerson purchased 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 3rd. The stock was bought at an average price of $137.30 per share, for a total transaction of $6,865,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,716,058 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $235,614,763.40. This trade represents a 3.00% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 0.24% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Applied Materials

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Applied Materials by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 77,039,667 shares of the manufacturing equipment provider’s stock worth $12,528,961,000 after purchasing an additional 487,358 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Applied Materials by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,079,451 shares of the manufacturing equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,260,178,000 after acquiring an additional 253,078 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in Applied Materials by 18.6% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 10,230,464 shares of the manufacturing equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,663,780,000 after acquiring an additional 1,602,645 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in Applied Materials in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,588,422,000. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its holdings in Applied Materials by 7.6% in the fourth quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 8,338,520 shares of the manufacturing equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,356,094,000 after acquiring an additional 587,036 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.56% of the company’s stock.

About Applied Materials

Applied Materials, Inc engages in the provision of manufacturing equipment, services, and software to the semiconductor, display, and related industries. The company operates through three segments: Semiconductor Systems, Applied Global Services, and Display and Adjacent Markets. The Semiconductor Systems segment develops, manufactures, and sells various manufacturing equipment that is used to fabricate semiconductor chips or integrated circuits.