Investors Purchase High Volume of Put Options on Amkor Technology (NASDAQ:AMKR)

Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) saw unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Stock traders purchased 15,025 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 544% compared to the average volume of 2,333 put options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Guillaume Marie Jean Rutten sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $31.51, for a total transaction of $315,100.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 204,971 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,458,636.21. This represents a 4.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 31.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Amkor Technology

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AMKR. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of Amkor Technology by 24,383.3% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 3,787,565 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $115,899,000 after buying an additional 3,772,095 shares in the last quarter. Driehaus Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Amkor Technology during the second quarter worth $58,379,000. Ceredex Value Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Amkor Technology in the third quarter worth $42,610,000. Millennium Management LLC raised its position in Amkor Technology by 359.7% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,360,292 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $54,439,000 after acquiring an additional 1,064,404 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in Amkor Technology by 522.0% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,134,106 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $34,704,000 after acquiring an additional 951,764 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 42.76% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on AMKR shares. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price objective on shares of Amkor Technology from $36.00 to $32.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. KeyCorp cut their target price on Amkor Technology from $38.00 to $34.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. StockNews.com cut Amkor Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Needham & Company LLC cut their price target on Amkor Technology from $45.00 to $34.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Amkor Technology from $48.00 to $42.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $36.29.

Amkor Technology Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:AMKR traded down $0.20 during trading on Monday, reaching $25.86. The company had a trading volume of 180,995 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,313,202. Amkor Technology has a fifty-two week low of $24.10 and a fifty-two week high of $44.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 2.06 and a quick ratio of 1.84. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $26.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $31.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.47 and a beta of 1.84.

Amkor Technology (NASDAQ:AMKR) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The semiconductor company reported $0.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.50 by ($0.01). Amkor Technology had a net margin of 5.68% and a return on equity of 8.98%. The firm had revenue of $1.86 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.84 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.54 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Amkor Technology will post 1.42 EPS for the current year.

Amkor Technology Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 23rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 4th were issued a dividend of $0.0827 per share. This is a boost from Amkor Technology’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08. This represents a $0.33 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.28%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 4th. Amkor Technology’s dividend payout ratio is currently 22.30%.

About Amkor Technology

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.