Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) Sees Significant Increase in Short Interest

Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) was the target of a large growth in short interest in the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 7,260,000 shares, a growth of 33.0% from the February 28th total of 5,460,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,940,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.7 days. Approximately 7.3% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on AMKR. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $34.00 price target on shares of Amkor Technology in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Melius downgraded Amkor Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $34.00 to $30.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. B. Riley lowered their target price on shares of Amkor Technology from $38.00 to $32.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Melius Research downgraded shares of Amkor Technology from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Amkor Technology from $26.00 to $24.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $31.50.

Insider Activity at Amkor Technology

In other Amkor Technology news, EVP Kevin Engel sold 5,489 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.69, for a total transaction of $119,056.41. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 1,388 shares in the company, valued at $30,105.72. This represents a 79.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Agnes C. Kim sold 869,565 shares of Amkor Technology stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $21.85, for a total value of $18,999,995.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 10,020,870 shares in the company, valued at approximately $218,956,009.50. This represents a 7.98 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 31.40% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Amkor Technology

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Amkor Technology by 7.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,664,226 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $402,414,000 after acquiring an additional 1,092,002 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its stake in Amkor Technology by 7.9% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 4,778,790 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $122,767,000 after acquiring an additional 350,809 shares during the period. Alliancebernstein L.P. raised its stake in Amkor Technology by 15.8% during the 4th quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 4,081,481 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $104,853,000 after buying an additional 556,761 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Amkor Technology by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,355,817 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $102,688,000 after purchasing an additional 176,528 shares during the period. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in Amkor Technology by 24.4% during the fourth quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,709,002 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $69,594,000 after purchasing an additional 530,771 shares in the last quarter. 42.76% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Amkor Technology Trading Down 1.3 %

Shares of AMKR stock opened at $18.06 on Tuesday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $21.86 and its 200 day moving average is $25.62. The company has a market capitalization of $4.46 billion, a PE ratio of 12.63 and a beta of 1.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a current ratio of 2.11. Amkor Technology has a 52-week low of $17.61 and a 52-week high of $44.86.

Amkor Technology (NASDAQ:AMKR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 10th. The semiconductor company reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.37 by $0.06. Amkor Technology had a net margin of 5.60% and a return on equity of 8.59%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Amkor Technology will post 1.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Amkor Technology Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 13th will be given a dividend of $0.0827 per share. This represents a $0.33 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.83%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 13th. Amkor Technology’s payout ratio is 23.08%.

Amkor Technology Company Profile

Amkor Technology, Inc provides outsourced semiconductor packaging and test services in the United States, Japan, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It offers turnkey packaging and test services, including semiconductor wafer bump, wafer probe, wafer back-grind, package design, packaging, system-level and final test, and drop shipment services; flip chip scale package products for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile consumer electronic devices; flip chip stacked chip scale packages that are used to stack memory digital baseband, and as applications processors in mobile devices; flip-chip ball grid array packages for various networking, storage, computing, automotive, and consumer applications; and memory products for system memory or platform data storage.