Short Interest in Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NASDAQ:SIMO) Grows By 80.2%

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NASDAQ:SIMO) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest in August. As of August 14th, there was short interest totaling 1,455,337 shares, a growth of 80.2% from the July 30th total of 807,432 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,439,653 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.0 days. Currently, 4.5% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Han-Ping Shieh sold 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $328.00, for a total value of $328,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 7,500 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,460,000. This represents a 11.76% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Kuan-Ming Lin sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total value of $610,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 8,500 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,592,500. The trade was a 19.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 4,000 shares of company stock valued at $1,239,250 in the last three months. Company insiders own 5.34% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Assetmark Inc. grew its stake in Silicon Motion Technology by 2.3% in the first quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 2,814 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock valued at $316,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares in the last quarter. Wedbush Securities Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Silicon Motion Technology by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Wedbush Securities Inc. now owns 4,685 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock valued at $434,000 after buying an additional 79 shares during the last quarter. NewEdge Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Silicon Motion Technology by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. NewEdge Wealth LLC now owns 2,631 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock valued at $244,000 after buying an additional 91 shares during the last quarter. Cooper Investors PTY Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Silicon Motion Technology in the second quarter valued at $34,000. Finally, Ballentine Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Silicon Motion Technology by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC now owns 4,006 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock valued at $371,000 after buying an additional 110 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

SIMO has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on Silicon Motion Technology from $275.00 to $350.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Zacks Research raised shares of Silicon Motion Technology from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. B. Riley Financial increased their target price on shares of Silicon Motion Technology from $312.00 to $350.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Silicon Motion Technology from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 15th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Silicon Motion Technology from a “hold (c)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, August 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and nine have issued a Buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Silicon Motion Technology has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $341.43.

Silicon Motion Technology Stock Performance

Silicon Motion Technology stock traded down $4.98 on Monday, reaching $240.83. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 205,115 shares, compared to its average volume of 900,471. The company has a market cap of $8.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.23, a PEG ratio of 0.43 and a beta of 1.71. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $275.85 and its 200 day moving average price is $215.97. Silicon Motion Technology has a twelve month low of $77.22 and a twelve month high of $355.00.

Silicon Motion Technology (NASDAQ:SIMO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The semiconductor producer reported $2.43 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.13 by $0.30. Silicon Motion Technology had a return on equity of 32.04% and a net margin of 22.06%.The company had revenue of $451.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $403.41 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.69 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 127.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Silicon Motion Technology will post 10.78 earnings per share for the current year.

About Silicon Motion Technology

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, and markets NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices. The company offers controllers for computing-grade solid state drives (SSDs), which are used in PCs and other client devices; enterprise-grade SSDs used in data centers; eMMC and UFS mobile embedded storage for use in smartphones and IoT devices; flash memory cards and flash drives for use in expandable storage; and specialized SSDs that are used in industrial, commercial, and automotive applications.