Principal Financial Group Inc. Grows Position in Diodes Incorporated (NASDAQ:DIOD)

Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in Diodes Incorporated (NASDAQ:DIOD) by 2.6% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 230,728 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,931 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. owned approximately 0.50% of Diodes worth $9,961,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of DIOD. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new stake in shares of Diodes in the 4th quarter valued at about $79,000. Sterling Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Diodes by 789.7% during the 4th quarter. Sterling Capital Management LLC now owns 1,290 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $80,000 after buying an additional 1,145 shares in the last quarter. Xponance Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Diodes during the 4th quarter valued at about $203,000. Brevan Howard Capital Management LP purchased a new position in shares of Diodes during the 4th quarter valued at about $251,000. Finally, Cibc World Markets Corp purchased a new position in shares of Diodes during the 4th quarter valued at about $263,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.23% of the company’s stock.

Diodes Price Performance

DIOD opened at $56.03 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $2.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 101.87 and a beta of 1.46. Diodes Incorporated has a 1 year low of $32.93 and a 1 year high of $86.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 3.43 and a quick ratio of 2.11. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $49.46 and its 200 day simple moving average is $49.70.

Diodes (NASDAQ:DIOD) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The semiconductor company reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.01. Diodes had a net margin of 1.90% and a return on equity of 3.04%. The firm had revenue of $332.11 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $323.28 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.28 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 10.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts predict that Diodes Incorporated will post 1.82 earnings per share for the current year.

Diodes declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase program on Thursday, May 8th that permits the company to repurchase $100.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the semiconductor company to reacquire up to 5.4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on DIOD shares. Baird R W raised Diodes from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 7th. Robert W. Baird raised Diodes from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $50.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, April 7th. Finally, Benchmark reissued a “buy” rating and set a $62.00 price objective (up from $55.00) on shares of Diodes in a report on Friday, June 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Diodes presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $55.00.

Diodes Company Profile

Diodes Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and supplies application-specific standard products in the broad discrete, logic, analog, and mixed-signal semiconductor markets worldwide. The company offers discrete semiconductor products, such as MOSFETs, SiC MOSFETs; data line protection, power line protection, thyristers, USB Type-C protection, and transient voltage suppressors; Schottky, small signal switching, Zener, and SiC diodes; bridges, super barrier, Schottky, Schottky bridge, and fast/ultra-fast rectifiers; and bipolar, avalanche, gate driver, and pre-bias transistors.