KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC) Hits New 52-Week High – Still a Buy?

Shares of KLA Corporation (NASDAQ:KLAC) reached a new 52-week high during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $1,806.75 and last traded at $1,805.32, with a volume of 623107 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $1,791.44.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently commented on KLAC shares. Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of KLA from $1,800.00 to $1,900.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, March 13th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of KLA from $1,575.00 to $1,835.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday. KeyCorp reissued a “sector weight” rating on shares of KLA in a research note on Friday, March 13th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of KLA from $1,600.00 to $1,700.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of KLA from $1,751.00 to $1,809.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 25th. Twenty analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and eleven have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, KLA currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $1,624.07.

KLA Price Performance

The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $1,541.83 and its 200-day moving average price is $1,361.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 2.83 and a quick ratio of 2.00. The firm has a market cap of $237.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 1.44.

KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The semiconductor company reported $8.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $8.75 by $0.10. KLA had a net margin of 35.76% and a return on equity of 98.18%. The business had revenue of $3.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.25 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $8.20 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that KLA Corporation will post 36.64 EPS for the current fiscal year.

KLA Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 17th were issued a dividend of $1.90 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 17th. This represents a $7.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.4%. KLA’s payout ratio is currently 22.11%.

KLA declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan on Thursday, March 12th that authorizes the company to repurchase $7.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the semiconductor company to buy up to 3.7% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in KLAC. Monetary Management Group Inc. increased its stake in KLA by 0.4% in the 2nd quarter. Monetary Management Group Inc. now owns 3,773 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $3,380,000 after buying an additional 15 shares during the period. Tandem Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in KLA by 1.6% in the 2nd quarter. Tandem Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,043 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $934,000 after buying an additional 16 shares during the period. WFA of San Diego LLC acquired a new position in KLA in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $90,000. Captrust Financial Advisors increased its stake in KLA by 13.8% in the 2nd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 5,118 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $4,584,000 after buying an additional 619 shares during the period. Finally, Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its stake in KLA by 75.8% in the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,177 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $2,348,000 after buying an additional 939 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.65% of the company’s stock.

About KLA

KLA is a provider of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related microelectronics industries. The company designs and manufactures equipment, software and services used by chipmakers to analyze and control manufacturing processes, detect defects, measure critical dimensions and improve yield across wafer fabrication, photomask and packaging operations. KLA’s offerings are aimed at enabling production of advanced logic, memory, and specialty devices at progressively smaller technology nodes and more complex package structures.

Its product portfolio includes optical and e-beam inspection systems, metrology tools for critical dimension and film measurement, mask and reticle inspection platforms, as well as enterprise software and data analytics that aggregate process data and drive automated process control.