Northern Trust Corp Raises Holdings in Silicon Motion Technology Co. (NASDAQ:SIMO)

Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in Silicon Motion Technology Co. (NASDAQ:SIMO) by 3,234.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 136,636 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock after buying an additional 132,538 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp owned about 0.41% of Silicon Motion Technology worth $7,385,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Perigon Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Silicon Motion Technology in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $431,000. Rhumbline Advisers raised its holdings in shares of Silicon Motion Technology by 8.7% during the 4th quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 5,668 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock worth $306,000 after acquiring an additional 453 shares during the period. Choreo LLC acquired a new position in Silicon Motion Technology in the 4th quarter valued at about $209,000. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its holdings in Silicon Motion Technology by 64.7% in the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,248 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock valued at $122,000 after acquiring an additional 883 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. boosted its position in shares of Silicon Motion Technology by 7.1% during the 4th quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 58,823 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock worth $3,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,875 shares during the period. 78.02% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Bank of America upgraded shares of Silicon Motion Technology from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $47.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. StockNews.com lowered shares of Silicon Motion Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. B. Riley increased their price objective on shares of Silicon Motion Technology from $70.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 target price on shares of Silicon Motion Technology in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC lowered their price target on shares of Silicon Motion Technology from $70.00 to $65.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Silicon Motion Technology presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $75.88.

Silicon Motion Technology Stock Up 1.5%

SIMO stock opened at $64.15 on Tuesday. Silicon Motion Technology Co. has a 52 week low of $37.21 and a 52 week high of $85.87. The company has a market cap of $2.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.85, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.72. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $48.99 and a 200-day simple moving average of $52.59.

Silicon Motion Technology (NASDAQ:SIMO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The semiconductor producer reported $0.60 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.44 by $0.16. Silicon Motion Technology had a return on equity of 11.63% and a net margin of 11.29%. The company had revenue of $166.49 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $162.69 million. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.64 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Silicon Motion Technology Co. will post 3.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Silicon Motion Technology announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, February 5th that authorizes the company to repurchase $50.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the semiconductor producer to repurchase up to 2.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

About Silicon Motion Technology

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, and markets NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices. The company offers controllers for computing-grade solid state drives (SSDs), which are used in PCs and other client devices; enterprise-grade SSDs used in data centers; eMMC and UFS mobile embedded storage for use in smartphones and IoT devices; flash memory cards and flash drives for use in expandable storage; and specialized SSDs that are used in industrial, commercial, and automotive applications.