Verdence Capital Advisors LLC Lowers Stake in Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU)

Verdence Capital Advisors LLC lowered its stake in shares of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) by 4.0% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 107,223 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock after selling 4,431 shares during the quarter. Micron Technology accounts for 0.7% of Verdence Capital Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 25th biggest position. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Micron Technology were worth $9,024,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Swedbank AB raised its position in Micron Technology by 30.4% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,455,819 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $358,403,000 after purchasing an additional 806,639 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC raised its position in Micron Technology by 12.1% in the 3rd quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 120,731 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $12,521,000 after purchasing an additional 13,051 shares during the period. Intact Investment Management Inc. raised its position in Micron Technology by 57.2% in the 3rd quarter. Intact Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,660 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $587,000 after purchasing an additional 2,060 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. raised its position in Micron Technology by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 425,761 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $44,156,000 after purchasing an additional 5,018 shares during the period. Finally, PDS Planning Inc raised its position in Micron Technology by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter. PDS Planning Inc now owns 4,382 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $454,000 after purchasing an additional 104 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.84% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on shares of Micron Technology from $135.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of Micron Technology from $135.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Sanford C. Bernstein decreased their price objective on shares of Micron Technology from $140.00 to $120.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Micron Technology from $98.00 to $91.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group cut their target price on shares of Micron Technology from $145.00 to $128.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $134.96.

Insider Buying and Selling at Micron Technology

In other Micron Technology news, EVP April S. Arnzen sold 4,890 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.21, for a total transaction of $416,676.90. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 181,223 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,442,011.83. This represents a 2.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Micron Technology Stock Up 0.7 %

MU opened at $91.20 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.75, a current ratio of 2.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $95.81 and a 200-day moving average price of $98.63. Micron Technology, Inc. has a twelve month low of $83.54 and a twelve month high of $157.54. The stock has a market capitalization of $101.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.28 and a beta of 1.18.

Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 18th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $1.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.19. Micron Technology had a net margin of 13.34% and a return on equity of 8.32%. The firm had revenue of $8.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.71 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($0.95) earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 84.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Micron Technology, Inc. will post 6.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Micron Technology Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 30th were issued a dividend of $0.115 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 30th. This represents a $0.46 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.50%. Micron Technology’s payout ratio is 13.26%.

About Micron Technology

Micron Technology, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and sells memory and storage products worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Compute and Networking Business Unit, Mobile Business Unit, Embedded Business Unit, and Storage Business Unit. It provides memory and storage technologies comprising dynamic random access memory semiconductor devices with low latency that provide high-speed data retrieval; non-volatile and re-writeable semiconductor storage devices; and non-volatile re-writable semiconductor memory devices that provide fast read speeds under the Micron and Crucial brands, as well as through private labels.