Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI) Shares Bought by Vanguard Group Inc.

Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Nova Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVMI - Free Report) by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 959,065 shares of the semiconductor company's stock after purchasing an additional 13,988 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. owned approximately 3.34% of Nova worth $107,837,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. LPL Financial LLC grew its holdings in shares of Nova by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 7,687 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $864,000 after acquiring an additional 98 shares during the period. Creative Planning grew its holdings in shares of Nova by 3.7% in the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 3,215 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $285,000 after acquiring an additional 114 shares during the period. Signaturefd LLC grew its holdings in shares of Nova by 20.6% in the 3rd quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 672 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $76,000 after acquiring an additional 115 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Nova by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,308 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $367,000 after acquiring an additional 119 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Nova by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 23,591 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $1,926,000 after buying an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.99% of the company's stock.

Nova Trading Down 1.6 %

NASDAQ NVMI traded down $2.88 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $176.05. The company's stock had a trading volume of 162,107 shares, compared to its average volume of 159,792. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $167.30 and a 200 day simple moving average of $136.17. Nova Ltd. has a 52 week low of $87.85 and a 52 week high of $190.51. The stock has a market cap of $5.05 billion, a PE ratio of 41.13, a PEG ratio of 6.73 and a beta of 1.41.

Nova (NASDAQ:NVMI - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The semiconductor company reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.14. Nova had a return on equity of 20.55% and a net margin of 26.32%. The company had revenue of $134.22 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $128.00 million. As a group, equities analysts predict that Nova Ltd. will post 4.87 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Benchmark increased their price target on Nova from $150.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, February 16th.

About Nova

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.