D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. Acquires Shares of 617,753 United Microelectronics Co. (NYSE:UMC)

D. E. Shaw & Co. Inc. acquired a new stake in United Microelectronics Co. (NYSE:UMC) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 617,753 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,009,000.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of United Microelectronics by 4.9% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,947,754 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $103,501,000 after purchasing an additional 750,472 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of United Microelectronics by 3.4% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 7,300,362 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $47,379,000 after purchasing an additional 237,024 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC lifted its position in shares of United Microelectronics by 10.7% during the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 3,547,867 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $23,026,000 after purchasing an additional 341,937 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in shares of United Microelectronics by 238.8% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,184,444 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $20,667,000 after purchasing an additional 2,244,574 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its position in shares of United Microelectronics by 150.8% during the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,021,849 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $13,122,000 after purchasing an additional 1,215,849 shares in the last quarter. 5.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

UMC has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Wedbush lowered shares of United Microelectronics from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Citigroup raised shares of United Microelectronics from a “strong sell” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $7.40.

United Microelectronics Stock Performance

Shares of UMC stock opened at $7.84 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $19.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.51, a P/E/G ratio of 4.44 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a quick ratio of 1.76 and a current ratio of 2.19. United Microelectronics Co. has a 52 week low of $5.61 and a 52 week high of $9.00. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $6.91 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $6.64.

United Microelectronics (NYSE:UMC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 23rd. The semiconductor company reported $0.09 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.10 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $1.78 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $57.63 billion. United Microelectronics had a return on equity of 12.78% and a net margin of 20.35%. The business’s revenue was up 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.13 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that United Microelectronics Co. will post 0.51 earnings per share for the current year.

United Microelectronics Profile

United Microelectronics Corporation operates as a semiconductor wafer foundry in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the United States, Europe, and internationally. The company provides circuit design, mask tooling, wafer fabrication, and assembly and testing services. It serves fabless design companies and integrated device manufacturers.