Needham & Company LLC Reaffirms Buy Rating for Silicon Motion Technology (NASDAQ:SIMO)

Silicon Motion Technology (NASDAQ:SIMO)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reissued by investment analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $70.00 price target on the semiconductor producer’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s target price suggests a potential upside of 25.97% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other research firms have also recently weighed in on SIMO. Susquehanna decreased their price objective on Silicon Motion Technology from $110.00 to $95.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Craig Hallum dropped their price objective on shares of Silicon Motion Technology from $96.00 to $90.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 target price on shares of Silicon Motion Technology in a report on Monday, December 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com raised Silicon Motion Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $81.11.

Silicon Motion Technology Trading Down 1.9 %

Shares of NASDAQ SIMO opened at $55.57 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $1.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.05, a P/E/G ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 0.79. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $54.57 and a two-hundred day moving average of $57.65. Silicon Motion Technology has a twelve month low of $48.81 and a twelve month high of $85.87.

Silicon Motion Technology (NASDAQ:SIMO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The semiconductor producer reported $0.68 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.78 by ($0.10). Silicon Motion Technology had a return on equity of 11.52% and a net margin of 10.90%. As a group, research analysts predict that Silicon Motion Technology will post 2.58 earnings per share for the current year.

Silicon Motion Technology announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, February 5th that authorizes the company to repurchase $50.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the semiconductor producer to repurchase up to 2.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in SIMO. Advisors Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Silicon Motion Technology by 129.4% during the third quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 445 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 251 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its position in Silicon Motion Technology by 123.2% during the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 877 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock worth $47,000 after acquiring an additional 484 shares during the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in Silicon Motion Technology by 139.5% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,365 shares of the semiconductor producer’s stock worth $83,000 after acquiring an additional 795 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp acquired a new position in Silicon Motion Technology in the 3rd quarter valued at $151,000. Finally, Choreo LLC purchased a new position in shares of Silicon Motion Technology during the 4th quarter worth $209,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.02% of the company’s stock.

About Silicon Motion Technology

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, and markets NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices. The company offers controllers for computing-grade solid state drives (SSDs), which are used in PCs and other client devices; enterprise-grade SSDs used in data centers; eMMC and UFS mobile embedded storage for use in smartphones and IoT devices; flash memory cards and flash drives for use in expandable storage; and specialized SSDs that are used in industrial, commercial, and automotive applications.