Traders Purchase High Volume of Put Options on Amkor Technology (NASDAQ:AMKR)

Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) was the target of unusually large options trading on Friday. Stock investors purchased 17,241 put options on the company. This is an increase of 532% compared to the typical volume of 2,728 put options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. StockNews.com downgraded Amkor Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. DA Davidson decreased their price target on shares of Amkor Technology from $40.00 to $36.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Amkor Technology from $35.00 to $26.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Melius Research lowered Amkor Technology from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC decreased their price target on Amkor Technology from $45.00 to $34.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Amkor Technology currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $35.50.

Amkor Technology Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:AMKR traded down $0.05 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $25.86. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 389,026 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,193,380. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $26.11 and its 200 day simple moving average is $29.90. Amkor Technology has a fifty-two week low of $24.10 and a fifty-two week high of $44.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.47 and a beta of 1.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a quick ratio of 1.84 and a current ratio of 2.06.

Amkor Technology (NASDAQ:AMKR) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 28th. The semiconductor company reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.50 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $1.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.84 billion. Amkor Technology had a net margin of 5.68% and a return on equity of 8.98%. Amkor Technology’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.54 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Amkor Technology will post 1.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Amkor Technology Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 23rd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, December 4th were paid a dividend of $0.0827 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 4th. This represents a $0.33 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.28%. This is an increase from Amkor Technology’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08. Amkor Technology’s payout ratio is currently 22.30%.

Institutional Trading of Amkor Technology

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AMKR. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Amkor Technology by 24,383.3% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 3,787,565 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $115,899,000 after purchasing an additional 3,772,095 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Amkor Technology by 5.6% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,355,817 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $102,688,000 after purchasing an additional 176,528 shares during the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC boosted its position in Amkor Technology by 3.2% in the second quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 2,423,255 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $96,979,000 after buying an additional 75,364 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Amkor Technology by 6.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,094,296 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $64,101,000 after buying an additional 131,106 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Amkor Technology by 4.9% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,878,912 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $57,495,000 after acquiring an additional 88,226 shares during the last quarter. 42.76% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Amkor Technology Company Profile

Amkor Technology, Inc provides outsourced semiconductor packaging and test services in the United States, Japan, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It offers turnkey packaging and test services, including semiconductor wafer bump, wafer probe, wafer back-grind, package design, packaging, system-level and final test, and drop shipment services; flip chip scale package products for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile consumer electronic devices; flip chip stacked chip scale packages that are used to stack memory digital baseband, and as applications processors in mobile devices; flip-chip ball grid array packages for various networking, storage, computing, automotive, and consumer applications; and memory products for system memory or platform data storage.