Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. Purchases 7,659,830 Shares of Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX)

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX) by 931.2% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 8,482,429 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after buying an additional 7,659,830 shares during the quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Lam Research were worth $612,686,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Lam Research by 892.7% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 18,578,181 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $1,341,902,000 after buying an additional 16,706,708 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its holdings in shares of Lam Research by 860.4% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 11,786,808 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $851,361,000 after acquiring an additional 10,559,508 shares in the last quarter. National Pension Service purchased a new stake in Lam Research in the fourth quarter worth $219,200,000. Swedbank AB boosted its holdings in Lam Research by 1,488.8% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,069,002 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $221,674,000 after acquiring an additional 2,875,843 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. raised its holdings in Lam Research by 827.2% in the 4th quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 3,160,523 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $228,285,000 after purchasing an additional 2,819,668 shares in the last quarter. 84.61% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

LRCX has been the topic of a number of research reports. Susquehanna raised shares of Lam Research from a “neutral” rating to a “positive” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $75.00 to $125.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Lam Research from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $100.00 target price on shares of Lam Research in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their target price on Lam Research from $96.00 to $85.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Wolfe Research cut Lam Research from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $98.22.

Lam Research Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ LRCX opened at $76.44 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $79.03 and a 200 day moving average of $77.87. The company has a quick ratio of 1.73, a current ratio of 2.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51. Lam Research Co. has a twelve month low of $68.87 and a twelve month high of $113.00. The firm has a market cap of $98.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.22, a PEG ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.46.

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The semiconductor company reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Lam Research had a return on equity of 51.86% and a net margin of 26.49%. As a group, research analysts expect that Lam Research Co. will post 3.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Lam Research Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th will be paid a $0.23 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 5th. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.20%. Lam Research’s dividend payout ratio is presently 27.96%.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP Seshasayee Varadarajan sold 110,080 shares of Lam Research stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.00, for a total value of $9,907,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 179,084 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,117,560. The trade was a 38.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.29% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About Lam Research

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.