Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) Price Target Raised to $245.00

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) had its price target boosted by Benchmark from $240.00 to $245.00 in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. Benchmark currently has a buy rating on the semiconductor company’s stock.

A number of other analysts also recently commented on NVMI. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of Nova in a research note on Friday. Citigroup lowered Nova from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $273.00 to $224.00 in a research report on Monday, September 16th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Nova has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $227.80.

Nova Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of NVMI stock traded up $0.93 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $198.61. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 90,052 shares, compared to its average volume of 186,927. The stock has a market cap of $5.77 billion, a PE ratio of 36.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 1.47. Nova has a 12-month low of $110.94 and a 12-month high of $247.21. The company has a 50 day moving average of $198.31 and a 200 day moving average of $208.12.

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The semiconductor company reported $1.61 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.43. The company had revenue of $156.86 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $148.12 million. Nova had a net margin of 28.00% and a return on equity of 22.11%. The firm’s revenue was up 27.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.97 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Nova will post 5.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Nova

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Norden Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Nova in the first quarter valued at approximately $289,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets raised its position in Nova by 231.2% during the first quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 31,083 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $5,514,000 after acquiring an additional 21,699 shares during the period. Duality Advisers LP purchased a new position in Nova in the 1st quarter valued at about $266,000. Quantbot Technologies LP lifted its stake in Nova by 12.8% in the 1st quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 11,650 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $2,066,000 after buying an additional 1,325 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its holdings in Nova by 15.1% in the 1st quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 2,661 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $472,000 after buying an additional 349 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.99% of the company’s stock.

About Nova

Nova Ltd. designs, develops, produces, and sells process control systems used in the manufacture of semiconductors in Israel, Taiwan, the United States, China, Korea, and internationally. Its product portfolio includes a set of metrology platforms for dimensional, films, and materials and chemical metrology measurements for process control for various semiconductor manufacturing process steps, including lithography, etch, chemical mechanical planarization, deposition, electrochemical plating, and advanced packaging.