William Blair Begins Coverage on NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Stock analysts at William Blair started coverage on shares of NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) in a report issued on Wednesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage set an “outperform” rating on the computer hardware maker’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also issued reports on the company. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $200.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Westpark Capital boosted their price target on shares of NVIDIA from $127.50 to $165.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of NVIDIA from $126.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $135.00 target price on shares of NVIDIA in a report on Monday, August 19th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on NVIDIA from $155.00 to $165.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-seven have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $142.10.

NVIDIA Price Performance

NASDAQ:NVDA opened at $117.87 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.90 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 68.93, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a 50-day moving average of $116.25 and a 200-day moving average of $106.75. NVIDIA has a 52 week low of $39.23 and a 52 week high of $140.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 3.79 and a current ratio of 4.27.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.64 by $0.04. NVIDIA had a net margin of 55.04% and a return on equity of 113.50%. The firm had revenue of $30.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $28.74 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.25 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 122.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that NVIDIA will post 2.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NVIDIA declared that its board has initiated a share buyback program on Wednesday, August 28th that permits the company to buyback $50.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the computer hardware maker to reacquire up to 1.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Ajay K. Puri sold 100,110 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.10, for a total value of $13,024,311.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 3,939,350 shares in the company, valued at $512,509,435. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other NVIDIA news, EVP Ajay K. Puri sold 100,110 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.10, for a total value of $13,024,311.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 3,939,350 shares in the company, valued at $512,509,435. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Mark A. Stevens sold 385,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.74, for a total transaction of $50,334,900.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,141,240 shares in the company, valued at $1,195,125,717.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 3,621,133 shares of company stock worth $435,749,957. 4.23% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of NVIDIA

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of NVDA. Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in NVIDIA by 884.0% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 213,127,959 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $26,329,751,000 after buying an additional 191,469,114 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in shares of NVIDIA by 854.1% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 182,622,629 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $22,561,200,000 after purchasing an additional 163,482,580 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of NVIDIA by 870.3% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 102,422,225 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $12,658,922,000 after purchasing an additional 91,867,031 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of NVIDIA by 1,123.2% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 92,039,713 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $11,371,255,000 after buying an additional 84,515,429 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its stake in shares of NVIDIA by 808.6% in the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 82,689,605 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $10,215,474,000 after buying an additional 73,589,208 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 65.27% of the company’s stock.

NVIDIA Company Profile

NVIDIA Corporation provides graphics and compute and networking solutions in the United States, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and internationally. The Graphics segment offers GeForce GPUs for gaming and PCs, the GeForce NOW game streaming service and related infrastructure, and solutions for gaming platforms; Quadro/NVIDIA RTX GPUs for enterprise workstation graphics; virtual GPU or vGPU software for cloud-based visual and virtual computing; automotive platforms for infotainment systems; and Omniverse software for building and operating metaverse and 3D internet applications.