HighTower Advisors LLC Makes New $50.56 Million Investment in Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX)

HighTower Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 699,982 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $50,560,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Cypress Capital Group raised its position in Lam Research by 3.7% during the third quarter. Cypress Capital Group now owns 3,660 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $2,987,000 after acquiring an additional 132 shares during the last quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of Lam Research by 58.3% in the third quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc. now owns 364 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $297,000 after buying an additional 134 shares during the last quarter. West Oak Capital LLC raised its position in shares of Lam Research by 50.9% in the fourth quarter. West Oak Capital LLC now owns 400 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 135 shares during the last quarter. Baldwin Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Lam Research by 1.4% in the third quarter. Baldwin Investment Management LLC now owns 10,249 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $8,364,000 after buying an additional 137 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling LLC raised its position in shares of Lam Research by 10.1% in the third quarter. Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling LLC now owns 1,559 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,272,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.61% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

LRCX has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Wolfe Research lowered shares of Lam Research from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $100.00 price objective on shares of Lam Research in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective 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. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Lam Research from $87.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on shares of Lam Research from $96.00 to $85.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $98.22.

Lam Research Price Performance

LRCX opened at $75.26 on Friday. 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 52-week low of $68.87 and a 52-week high of $113.00. The company has a 50 day moving average of $79.50 and a two-hundred day moving average of $77.44. The company has a market cap of $96.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.86, a P/E/G ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.53.

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The semiconductor company reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Lam Research had a net margin of 26.49% and a return on equity of 51.86%. On average, analysts expect that Lam Research Co. will post 3.71 earnings per share for the current year.

Lam Research Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th will be paid a $0.23 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 5th. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.22%. Lam Research’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.96%.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Seshasayee Varadarajan sold 110,080 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $90.00, for a total value of $9,907,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 179,084 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,117,560. This represents a 38.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.29% of the company’s stock.

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.