ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX) Sets New 1-Year High - Here's Why

Key Points

• ASE Technology reached a new 52‑week intraday high of $29.89 (last trade ~$29.56) on Wednesday with roughly 6.9 million shares traded.
• Analyst sentiment is mixed with a MarketBeat consensus of Hold (one Buy, two Holds); recent moves include Zacks upgrading ASX from "strong sell" to "hold" and Wall Street Zen upgrading it to "buy".
• The company slightly beat quarterly EPS estimates ($0.21 vs $0.20) but missed revenue forecasts ($5.22B vs $5.47B), while several institutional investors (Lazard, Rafferty, Schroder, Millennium, BofA) materially increased their positions.

ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. (NYSE:ASX - Get Free Report)'s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $29.89 and last traded at $29.5560, with a volume of 6916059 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $29.28.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently issued reports on ASX. Zacks Research upgraded ASE Technology from a "strong sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Monday, April 6th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a "hold (c)" rating on shares of ASE Technology in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded ASE Technology from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Sunday, April 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Hold".

ASE Technology Stock Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $23.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $18.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $65.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.96, a P/E/G ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 1.46.

ASE Technology (NYSE:ASX - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The semiconductor company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.20 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $5.22 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.47 billion. ASE Technology had a return on equity of 12.06% and a net margin of 6.31%. On average, equities analysts forecast that ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. will post 0.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Rafferty Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of ASE Technology by 50.9% in the second quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC now owns 7,392,190 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $76,361,000 after buying an additional 2,491,918 shares during the last quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group lifted its position in shares of ASE Technology by 38.4% in the third quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 7,258,450 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $80,787,000 after buying an additional 2,012,970 shares during the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of ASE Technology by 11.1% in the fourth quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 20,010,829 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $322,174,000 after buying an additional 1,997,888 shares during the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC lifted its position in shares of ASE Technology by 130.8% in the third quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,169,267 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $35,147,000 after buying an additional 1,796,357 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE boosted its holdings in shares of ASE Technology by 18.8% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 8,815,184 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $91,061,000 after buying an additional 1,397,206 shares during the period. 6.80% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About ASE Technology

ASE Technology Holding Co, Ltd. NYSE: ASX, commonly referred to as ASE, is a Taiwan-based provider of semiconductor assembly and testing services. The company focuses on back-end semiconductor manufacturing and related services that prepare integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices for final use. Its core activities include advanced IC packaging, final testing, wafer probing, and related engineering and supply-chain support for semiconductor customers.

ASE offers a range of products and technical capabilities designed to meet increasingly complex packaging and system-in-package requirements.

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