MKS (NASDAQ:MKSI) Hits New 1-Year High – Should You Buy?

MKS Inc. (NASDAQ:MKSI) hit a new 52-week high on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $333.80 and last traded at $329.44, with a volume of 85506 shares. The stock had previously closed at $320.62.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on MKSI shares. Mizuho set a $400.00 price target on MKS in a research note on Wednesday. KeyCorp raised their price objective on MKS from $310.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of MKS in a research report on Tuesday, April 21st. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of MKS in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered MKS from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 23rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, MKS currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $324.92.

MKS Trading Down 1.8%

The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $272.77 and a 200 day simple moving average of $222.56. The company has a current ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. The company has a market cap of $22.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 68.62, a PEG ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 1.98.

MKS (NASDAQ:MKSI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 6th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.00 by $0.30. MKS had a return on equity of 21.49% and a net margin of 8.06%.The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.05 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.71 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.2% on a year-over-year basis. MKS has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 2.600-3.200 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that MKS Inc. will post 11.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MKS Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 12th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 3rd will be issued a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, June 3rd. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. MKS’s payout ratio is presently 20.92%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other MKS news, CEO John Tseng-Chung Lee sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $315.48, for a total transaction of $3,154,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 144,696 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,648,694.08. This represents a 6.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Kathleen Flaherty Burke sold 4,355 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $319.94, for a total value of $1,393,338.70. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 49,439 shares in the company, valued at $15,817,513.66. This represents a 8.10% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 34,623 shares of company stock worth $10,473,993 in the last ninety days. 0.57% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On MKS

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of MKS by 4.0% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,752,097 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $959,477,000 after acquiring an additional 295,480 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of MKS by 30.8% during the third quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,265,365 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $156,602,000 after acquiring an additional 297,850 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of MKS by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,254,049 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $200,438,000 after acquiring an additional 5,551 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in shares of MKS by 44.2% during the second quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 982,643 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $97,635,000 after acquiring an additional 301,223 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of MKS during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $147,453,000. 99.79% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About MKS

MKS Instruments, Inc (NASDAQ: MKSI) designs, manufactures and markets technology solutions that enable advanced processes in a variety of high‐technology and industrial markets. The company’s core offerings include vacuum and gas delivery systems, pressure and flow measurement instruments, optical metrology tools, photonics subsystems and critical components for manufacturing processes. These products support the precise control and monitoring needs of semiconductor, industrial manufacturing, life and health sciences, and research applications.

The company’s product portfolio features mass flow controllers, pressure transducers, vacuum gauges, gas purity monitors, laser-based metrology systems and photonic devices such as lasers and detectors.