Meridian Wealth Management LLC Grows Position in Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX)

Meridian Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX) by 907.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 9,602 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,649 shares during the period. Meridian Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Lam Research were worth $694,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Silver Coast Investments LLC lifted its position in shares of Lam Research by 1,151.1% in the fourth quarter. Silver Coast Investments LLC now owns 5,730 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $414,000 after acquiring an additional 5,272 shares in the last quarter. Garrett Wealth Advisory Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Lam Research in the fourth quarter worth about $252,000. Quintet Private Bank Europe S.A. bought a new position in shares of Lam Research in the fourth quarter worth about $361,000. LGT Fund Management Co Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Lam Research in the fourth quarter worth about $2,167,000. Finally, DJE Kapital AG bought a new position in shares of Lam Research in the fourth quarter worth about $14,024,000. 84.61% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Wolfe Research lowered Lam Research from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised Lam Research from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $85.00 to $91.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Barclays dropped their price objective on Lam Research from $90.00 to $75.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 17th. KeyCorp raised Lam Research from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $95.00 price target for the company in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $100.00 price target on shares of Lam Research in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $98.22.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Lam Research news, SVP Seshasayee Varadarajan sold 110,080 shares of the firm’s 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 in the company, valued at $16,117,560. This trade represents a 38.07 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.29% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Lam Research Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ LRCX opened at $76.44 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a quick ratio of 1.73 and a current ratio of 2.54. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $79.03 and its 200-day moving average price is $77.87. Lam Research Co. has a fifty-two week low of $68.87 and a fifty-two week high of $113.00. The company has a market cap of $98.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.22, a PEG ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.46.

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The semiconductor company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Lam Research had a return on equity of 51.86% and a net margin of 26.49%. On average, sell-side 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 disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.23 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 5th. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.20%. Lam Research’s payout ratio is currently 27.96%.

Lam Research Company Profile

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.