Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) Lowered to “Neutral” at Citigroup

Citigroup cut shares of Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI) from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note released on Monday, Marketbeat reports. The firm currently has $224.00 price target on the semiconductor company’s stock, down from their previous price target of $273.00.

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

Nova Stock Down 8.4 %

NVMI stock opened at $189.27 on Monday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $213.25 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $202.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 1.46. Nova has a twelve month low of $90.59 and a twelve month high of $247.21.

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nova

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NVMI. Employees Retirement System of Texas bought a new stake in shares of Nova in the second quarter valued at about $68,000. FSC Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Nova during the second quarter worth $79,000. Signaturefd LLC boosted its position in Nova by 15.9% during the 2nd quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 767 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $180,000 after acquiring an additional 105 shares in the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Nova by 46.2% in the 1st quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 1,038 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $184,000 after acquiring an additional 328 shares during the period. Finally, OLD National Bancorp IN bought a new position in shares of Nova in the 2nd quarter worth $205,000. 82.99% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other 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.