Brokerages Set Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) Price Target at $226.80

Shares of Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the six analysts that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and four have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $226.80.

Several analysts recently commented on NVMI shares. Citigroup downgraded Nova from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $273.00 to $224.00 in a research note on Monday, September 16th. Benchmark lifted their price objective on Nova from $215.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, August 9th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of NVMI. Norden Group LLC acquired a new position in Nova during the 1st quarter worth approximately $289,000. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. bought a new position in Nova in the first quarter valued at $252,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its position in Nova by 231.2% in the first quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 31,083 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $5,514,000 after purchasing an additional 21,699 shares in the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC increased its stake in Nova by 12.7% in the 1st quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 6,395 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,134,000 after buying an additional 719 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Duality Advisers LP bought a new stake in Nova during the 1st quarter worth about $266,000. 82.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Nova Trading Up 5.5 %

NASDAQ NVMI opened at $191.31 on Monday. Nova has a 12 month low of $98.86 and a 12 month high of $247.21. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $199.11 and a 200 day simple moving average of $207.60. The company has a market capitalization of $5.56 billion, a PE ratio of 39.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 1.47.

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

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.