NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) Trading 3.2% Higher – Still a Buy?

Shares of NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA) traded up 3.2% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $136.50 and last traded at $135.39. 74,177,004 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 73% from the average session volume of 273,774,156 shares. The stock had previously closed at $131.14.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Mizuho upped their target price on shares of NVIDIA from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Loop Capital reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $175.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. Needham & Company LLC increased their price target on shares of NVIDIA from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Melius Research upped their price objective on shares of NVIDIA from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Tigress Financial upgraded shares of NVIDIA from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $170.00 to $220.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $166.23.

NVIDIA Stock Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $3.40 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 4.10 and a quick ratio of 3.64. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $134.52 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $130.07.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, November 20th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.69 by $0.12. NVIDIA had a return on equity of 114.83% and a net margin of 55.69%. The firm had revenue of $35.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $33.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.38 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 93.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

NVIDIA Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 5th were given a dividend of $0.01 per share. This represents a $0.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 5th. NVIDIA’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 1.57%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director John Dabiri sold 716 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.00, for a total value of $101,672.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 19,942 shares in the company, valued at $2,831,764. The trade was a 3.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Ajay K. Puri sold 36,462 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.10, for a total value of $5,509,408.20. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 3,902,888 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $589,726,376.80. This trade represents a 0.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 1,108,348 shares of company stock valued at $146,506,958 in the last 90 days. 4.23% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of NVIDIA

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of NVIDIA by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors LLC now owns 31,211 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $4,191,000 after acquiring an additional 953 shares during the period. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co lifted its position in shares of NVIDIA by 4.4% during the 4th quarter. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co now owns 721,963 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $96,952,000 after acquiring an additional 30,375 shares during the period. Pennington Partners & CO. LLC bought a new stake in shares of NVIDIA during the 4th quarter valued at $3,155,000. South Plains Financial Inc. bought a new stake in shares of NVIDIA during the 4th quarter valued at $3,163,000. Finally, Blue Rock Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of NVIDIA during the 4th quarter valued at $1,889,000. 65.27% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About NVIDIA

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.