Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) Rating Lowered to Neutral at Citigroup

Citigroup downgraded shares of Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research report released on Monday morning, MarketBeat reports. They currently have $224.00 target price on the semiconductor company’s stock, down from their previous target price of $273.00.

Separately, Benchmark upped their target price on Nova from $215.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, August 9th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $226.80.

Nova Stock Up 6.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ NVMI opened at $205.30 on Monday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $210.72 and its 200 day moving average is $202.47. Nova has a 52 week low of $90.59 and a 52 week high of $247.21. The company has a market cap of $5.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.30, a PEG ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 1.46.

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 8th. The semiconductor company reported $1.61 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.18 by $0.43. Nova had a net margin of 27.38% and a return on equity of 20.76%. The firm had revenue of $156.86 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $148.12 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.97 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 27.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Nova will post 5.63 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nova

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NVMI. Maven Securities LTD purchased a new position in Nova during the second quarter valued at $227,000. Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its position in Nova by 70.4% during the 2nd quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 6,018 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,411,000 after acquiring an additional 2,486 shares during the period. Creative Planning boosted its stake in Nova by 4.5% during the second quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,567 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $837,000 after acquiring an additional 155 shares in the last quarter. Susquehanna International Group Ltd. purchased a new stake in Nova in the second quarter worth about $1,145,000. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company bought a new position in shares of Nova during the second quarter valued at approximately $211,000. 82.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Nova Company Profile

Nova Ltd. designs, develops, produces, and sells process control systems used in the manufacture of semiconductors in Israel, Taiwan, the United States, China, Korea, and internationally. Its product portfolio includes a set of metrology platforms for dimensional, films, and materials and chemical metrology measurements for process control for various semiconductor manufacturing process steps, including lithography, etch, chemical mechanical planarization, deposition, electrochemical plating, and advanced packaging.