Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Boosts Stock Position in NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System increased its stake in shares of NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA) by 877.8% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,148,200 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock after buying an additional 1,928,500 shares during the quarter. NVIDIA accounts for 5.1% of Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd largest holding. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in NVIDIA were worth $265,389,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of NVDA. Aveo Capital Partners LLC boosted its position in NVIDIA by 30.5% in the fourth quarter. Aveo Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,351 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $1,164,000 after purchasing an additional 549 shares during the last quarter. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC grew its position in NVIDIA by 60.9% during the fourth quarter. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC now owns 14,514 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $7,188,000 after buying an additional 5,496 shares during the period. RMR Wealth Builders increased its holdings in NVIDIA by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. RMR Wealth Builders now owns 25,381 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $12,569,000 after buying an additional 591 shares during the last quarter. Meridian Wealth Advisors LLC raised its position in NVIDIA by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Meridian Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 5,714 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $2,830,000 after acquiring an additional 22 shares during the period. Finally, Valtinson Bruner Financial Planning LLC purchased a new position in NVIDIA in the fourth quarter valued at about $316,000. 65.27% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

NVDA has been the topic of a number of research reports. Raymond James lifted their price target on shares of NVIDIA from $120.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 29th. KeyCorp boosted their target price on NVIDIA from $130.00 to $180.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. HSBC increased their price target on NVIDIA from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 21st. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $138.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Barclays cut their target price on shares of NVIDIA from $1,200.00 to $145.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, June 10th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, NVIDIA has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $142.10.

NVIDIA Stock Performance

NASDAQ:NVDA opened at $119.14 on Friday. NVIDIA Co. has a 1-year low of $39.23 and a 1-year high of $140.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 4.27 and a quick ratio of 3.79. The business has a 50 day moving average of $117.55 and a 200 day moving average of $105.46. The company has a market capitalization of $2.93 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 69.67, a PEG ratio of 0.93 and a beta of 1.67.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 28th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.64 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $30.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $28.74 billion. NVIDIA had a net margin of 55.04% and a return on equity of 113.50%. The firm’s revenue was up 122.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.25 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.64 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NVIDIA Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 3rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 12th will be paid a $0.01 dividend. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 12th. NVIDIA’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 2.34%.

NVIDIA announced that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Wednesday, August 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $50.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the computer hardware maker to purchase up to 1.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity at NVIDIA

In other NVIDIA news, CEO Jen Hsun Huang sold 120,000 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.87, for a total value of $16,304,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 80,814,995 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,980,333,370.65. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Colette Kress sold 100,000 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.99, for a total value of $12,699,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 5,288,862 shares in the company, valued at approximately $671,632,585.38. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Jen Hsun Huang sold 120,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $135.87, for a total value of $16,304,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 80,814,995 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,980,333,370.65. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 3,845,633 shares of company stock worth $465,330,122 in the last ninety days. 4.23% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

NVIDIA Profile

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.