First Trust Advisors LP Acquires 5,464,143 Shares of Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX)

First Trust Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX) by 902.4% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 6,069,678 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,464,143 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP’s holdings in Lam Research were worth $438,413,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in LRCX. West Oak Capital LLC grew its holdings in Lam Research by 50.9% in the 4th quarter. West Oak Capital LLC now owns 400 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 135 shares during the last quarter. Diversified Trust Co boosted its holdings in shares of Lam Research by 8.3% during the fourth quarter. Diversified Trust Co now owns 3,741 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $270,000 after purchasing an additional 286 shares during the period. McLean Asset Management Corp grew its stake in shares of Lam Research by 6.3% in the fourth quarter. McLean Asset Management Corp now owns 5,122 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $370,000 after purchasing an additional 302 shares during the last quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC increased its holdings in Lam Research by 900.0% during the 4th quarter. Fairway Wealth LLC now owns 340 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 306 shares during the period. Finally, Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC raised its position in Lam Research by 159.1% during the 4th quarter. Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC now owns 500 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 307 shares during the last quarter. 84.61% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on LRCX shares. Wolfe Research lowered Lam Research from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Lam Research from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $85.00 to $91.00 in a report on Thursday, January 30th. KeyCorp upgraded shares of Lam Research from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $95.00 price objective for the company in a report on Friday, January 17th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of Lam Research from $82.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Lam Research from $90.00 to $75.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 17th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Lam Research currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $93.87.

Lam Research Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ LRCX opened at $63.76 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $74.79 and a 200 day moving average of $75.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.73, a current ratio of 2.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51. Lam Research Co. has a twelve month low of $56.32 and a twelve month high of $113.00. The firm has a market cap of $81.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.37, a PEG ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.52.

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The semiconductor company reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Lam Research had a return on equity of 51.86% and a net margin of 26.49%. As a group, research analysts expect that Lam Research Co. will post 3.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Lam Research Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th were issued a dividend of $0.23 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 5th. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.44%. Lam Research’s payout ratio is 27.96%.

Insider Activity at Lam Research

In other news, SVP Seshasayee Varadarajan sold 110,080 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.00, for a total transaction of $9,907,200.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 179,084 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,117,560. This represents a 38.07 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.29% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Lam Research

Lam Research Corporation designs, manufactures, markets, refurbishes, and services semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The company offers ALTUS systems to deposit conformal films for tungsten metallization applications; SABRE electrochemical deposition products for copper interconnect transition that offers copper damascene manufacturing; SOLA ultraviolet thermal processing products for film treatments; and VECTOR plasma-enhanced CVD ALD products.