Essex Financial Services Inc. Acquires Shares of 5,543 Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX)

Essex Financial Services Inc. acquired a new stake in Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 5,543 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $400,000.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Cypress Capital Group boosted its stake in shares of Lam Research by 3.7% during the third quarter. Cypress Capital Group now owns 3,660 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $2,987,000 after buying an additional 132 shares during the period. Savvy Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Lam Research by 58.3% during the third quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc. now owns 364 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $297,000 after buying an additional 134 shares during the period. West Oak Capital LLC boosted its stake in shares of Lam Research by 50.9% during the fourth quarter. West Oak Capital LLC now owns 400 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 135 shares during the period. Baldwin Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Lam Research by 1.4% during the third quarter. Baldwin Investment Management LLC now owns 10,249 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $8,364,000 after buying an additional 137 shares during the period. Finally, Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling LLC boosted its stake in shares of Lam Research by 10.1% during the third quarter. Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling LLC now owns 1,559 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $1,272,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.61% of the company’s stock.

Lam Research Trading Up 2.1 %

Shares of LRCX opened at $83.30 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 2.54 and a quick ratio of 1.73. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $77.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $77.92. Lam Research Co. has a 1-year low of $68.87 and a 1-year high of $113.00. The stock has a market cap of $106.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.46.

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 29th. The semiconductor company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Lam Research had a net margin of 26.49% and a return on equity of 51.86%. Equities analysts forecast that Lam Research Co. will post 3.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Lam Research Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.23 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 5th. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.10%. Lam Research’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 27.96%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on LRCX. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on shares of Lam Research from $96.00 to $85.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Lam Research from $82.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Lam Research from $90.00 to $75.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 17th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Lam Research to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Lam Research from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $85.00 to $91.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $95.72.

Lam Research Profile

Lam Research Corporation designs, manufactures, markets, refurbishes, and services semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The company offers ALTUS systems to deposit conformal films for tungsten metallization applications; SABRE electrochemical deposition products for copper interconnect transition that offers copper damascene manufacturing; SOLA ultraviolet thermal processing products for film treatments; and VECTOR plasma-enhanced CVD ALD products.