Diodes (NASDAQ:DIOD) Upgraded by Wall Street Zen to "Buy" Rating

Key Points

• Diodes has been upgraded by Wall Street Zen from a "hold" to a "buy" rating, reflecting positive market sentiment towards the company.
• Benchmark also raised its price target for Diodes from $55.00 to $62.00, indicating growing confidence among analysts regarding the stock's future performance.
• The company has initiated a $100 million stock repurchase program, suggesting that the board believes the stock is currently undervalued.

Diodes (NASDAQ:DIOD - Get Free Report) was upgraded by investment analysts at Wall Street Zen from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note issued on Sunday.

DIOD has been the subject of a number of other reports. Baird R W raised shares of Diodes from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Monday, April 7th. Benchmark reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $62.00 price objective (up from $55.00) on shares of Diodes in a research note on Friday, June 13th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded Diodes from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $50.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, April 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Diodes has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $55.00.

Diodes Stock Performance

Shares of DIOD stock traded down $0.96 on Friday, reaching $48.25. The stock had a trading volume of 199,698 shares, compared to its average volume of 510,265. Diodes has a 1 year low of $32.93 and a 1 year high of $72.76. The stock has a market cap of $2.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 87.72 and a beta of 1.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 2.11 and a current ratio of 3.43. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $51.90 and a 200 day simple moving average of $48.62.

Diodes (NASDAQ:DIOD - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The semiconductor company reported $0.19 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $332.11 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $323.28 million. Diodes had a return on equity of 3.04% and a net margin of 1.90%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 10.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.28 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Diodes will post 1.82 EPS for the current year.

Diodes declared that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, May 8th that allows the company to buyback $100.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization allows the semiconductor company to buy up to 5.4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company's leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Diodes

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Diodes by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,902,006 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $363,977,000 after purchasing an additional 116,872 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in Diodes by 8.1% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,238,567 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $138,053,000 after purchasing an additional 168,545 shares in the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC grew its stake in Diodes by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 2,119,097 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $130,685,000 after purchasing an additional 7,552 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Diodes by 1.4% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,283,794 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $79,186,000 after buying an additional 17,742 shares during the period. Finally, Hood River Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Diodes during the fourth quarter valued at $72,037,000. Institutional investors own 99.23% of the company's stock.

Diodes Company Profile

Diodes Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and supplies application-specific standard products in the broad discrete, logic, analog, and mixed-signal semiconductor markets worldwide. The company offers discrete semiconductor products, such as MOSFETs, SiC MOSFETs; data line protection, power line protection, thyristers, USB Type-C protection, and transient voltage suppressors; Schottky, small signal switching, Zener, and SiC diodes; bridges, super barrier, Schottky, Schottky bridge, and fast/ultra-fast rectifiers; and bipolar, avalanche, gate driver, and pre-bias transistors.