Applied Materials Company Profile (NASDAQ:AMAT)

Applied Materials trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "AMAT."

Applied Materials announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, June 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 24th will be paid a dividend of $0.10 per share on Thursday, September 14th. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, August 22nd. View Applied Materials' Dividend History.

Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August, 17th. The company reported $0.86 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.02. The company earned $3.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.69 billion. Applied Materials had a net margin of 22.08% and a return on equity of 42.08%. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 32.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.50 earnings per share. View Applied Materials' Earnings History.

Applied Materials updated its fourth quarter earnings guidance on Thursday, August, 17th. The company provided EPS guidance of $0.86-0.94 for the period, compared to the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $0.82. The company issued revenue guidance of $3.85-4 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $3.71 billion.

23 equities research analysts have issued 1 year price objectives for Applied Materials' shares. Their predictions range from $5.00 to $65.00. On average, they expect Applied Materials' share price to reach $43.62 in the next year. View Analyst Ratings for Applied Materials.

Here are some recent quotes from research analysts about Applied Materials stock:

• 1. According to Zacks Investment Research, "Applied Materials is one of the world’s largest suppliers of fabrication equipment to semiconductor, LCD and solar PV cell manufacturers. The company's second quarter fiscal 2017 results beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate on earnings and revenues. Over the last one year, the stock has outperformed the industry it belongs to. Applied Materials is in a great position to grow sustainably and profitably based on its strong pipeline of enabling technologies, supported by expanding opportunities on the semiconductor, service and display fronts. Nevertheless, high fixed cost structure and customer concentration remain concerns." (8/14/2017)
• 2. UBS AG analysts commented, "China Semicon had 900+ booths this year; will be the key region for semicap. We attended China Semicon this week in Shanghai and remain comfortable with our 2018 China capex estimates of $9.8B (up 80% yoy). Our most positive meeting was with Huali, an indigenous foundry. Huali reported its fab 2 started construction recently and will spend $5.9B for 40k wpm of capacity. Its fab 2 is targeting the 28nm/14nm technology nodes. We believe Huali could order equipment in 2H17 with additional upside if it chooses to build a 3rd fab in 2018. We also met with GigaDevice but are less certain on its ability to move into DRAM and NAND. The company is building a new fab, Hefei Changxin, but we are not sure if it has the technology.Still have technology questions about XMC's NAND fab and Jinhua's DRAM fab We visited XMC's booth and confirmed it has a 5K wpm R&D line at its existing fab in Wuhan (China fab tracker). Our checks found XMC is planning to start a small scale 3D-NAND production by year end. XMC said its semicap purchases will be dependent on how large the scale is (we estimate a 30k wpm pilot line). XMC also reported its 32L NAND was validated by electrical test but we are not sure if this product will be profitable and it may need to develop 48L later on. At the show we did not find Jinhua, which has proposed building a DRAM fab in China. Our conversations at the show suggest Jinhua is targeting fab completion by 2H17 with production in 2H18, though most of the R&D work is being done in one of UMC's Taiwan fabs.Applied had an upbeat tone at its technical presentation at China Semicon. Applied's focused on customer migration from 2D to 3D-NAND; highlighted its new tools including Precision CVD, Sym3 Etch, Selectra Etch. We believe Applied can benefit from higher capex by indigenous China fabs going forward. One area that we will keep monitoring is competition from local China semicaps who are trying to sell more to local fabs. However, our checks at the show found local Chinese semicap companies have mostly sold small amounts of equipment to local China fabs (see page 3).Valuation: Buy rated with a 12-month price target of $44 Our PT is based on applying a 15x P/E to our FY18 EPS of $2.93. Our target multiple is at the high end of its historical range of 10-18x but in line with its peer group with share gains in semicap and display possibly driving more expansion opportunities." (3/20/2017)
• 3. Instinet analysts commented, "AMAT reported in-line but solid F1Q and guided F2Q well above, driven by strength in Display (+122% y/y) and SSG (+51% y/y). As such, we are raising our target price from $34 to $40, based on 13.5x our CY18E EPS. F1Q results in line. F2Q guidance strong. WFE outlook positive. Upside to FY19 target model." (2/17/2017)
• 4. Needham & Company LLC analysts commented, "The very strong F1Q17 (Jan) bookings and F2Q17 (Apr) guidance that is likely above buy-side expectations should silence any critics on AMAT's ability to continue to deliver profitable growth. Certainly, investors will likely continue to fear a softer CY2H17 especially with the exceptional near-term performance, but management sounded confident that its FY2H17 will at least grow YoY, supported by more back-end loaded Display revenue, broadening of foundry/logic demand, as well as AMAT's own share gains and solid product momentum. We continue to believe AMAT's strategy of targeting differentiated products around industry inflections will drive multiple years of profitable growth ahead, supporting a higher stock price." (2/16/2017)
• 5. Stifel Nicolaus analysts commented, "We maintain our view that Applied is the best-positioned name over the next several years with sustainable growth and one where we expect the company to outperform its peers during this time. We also believe the company is tracking ahead of its target model (for 2019) set at its Analyst Day last September. We are raising our target price to $42, which reflects the same 15x multiple on our long-term target model EPS of $2.80, including options." (2/13/2017)

Applied Materials saw a decrease in short interest in July. As of July 31st, there was short interest totalling 13,299,281 shares, a decrease of 18.1% from the July 14th total of 16,240,415 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 9,363,436 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.4 days. Currently, 1.2% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Some companies that are related to Applied Materials include Softbank Corp. (Japan) (SFTBY), NTT DOCOMO (DCM), Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN), QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM), Baidu (BIDU), Vodafone Group PLC (VOD), Adobe Systems Incorporated (ADBE), PayPal Holdings (PYPL), ASML Holding N.V. (ASML), Salesforce.com (CRM), America Movil, S.A.B. de C.V. (AMX), T-Mobile US (TMUS), RELX PLC (RELX), Relx N.V. (RENX), Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (CTSH), Vmware (VMW), NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI) and Canon (CAJ).

Applied Materials' management team includes the folowing people:

• Thomas J. Iannotti, Independent Chairman of the Board
• Gary E. Dickerson, President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
• Robert J. Halliday, Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President
• Omkaram Nalamasu, Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer
• Thomas F. Larkins, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
• Ali Salehpour, Senior Vice President, General Manager - Applied Global Services and Growth Markets
• Ginetto Addiego, Senior Vice President, Engineering, Operations and Quality
• Charles Read, Chief Accounting Officer, Corporate Vice President, Corporate Controller
• Judy Bruner, Independent Director
• Xun Chen, Independent Director

Applied Materials' stock is owned by a number of of retail and institutional investors. Top institutional shareholders include Vanguard Group Inc. (6.99%), BlackRock Inc. (6.17%), State Street Corp (4.55%), FMR LLC (2.80%), Capital Research Global Investors (1.65%) and Bank of New York Mellon Corp (1.33%). Company insiders that own Applied Materials stock include Ali Salehpour, Dennis D Powell, Gary E Dickerson, Omkaram Nalamasu, Randhir Thakur, Stephen R Forrest, Susan M James, Thomas F Larkins and Thomas J Iannotti. View Institutional Ownership Trends for Applied Materials.

Applied Materials' stock was sold by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including American Century Companies Inc., Marshall Wace North America L.P., Bank of Montreal Can, FMR LLC, Lazard Asset Management LLC, Numeric Investors LLC, Ameriprise Financial Inc. and AGF Investments Inc.. Company insiders that have sold Applied Materials stock in the last year include Dennis D Powell, Gary E Dickerson, Omkaram Nalamasu, Stephen R Forrest and Thomas F Larkins. View Insider Buying and Selling for Applied Materials.

Applied Materials' stock was bought by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including Janus Henderson Group PLC, Swedbank, Capital Research Global Investors, Egerton Capital UK LLP, Parametric Portfolio Associates LLC, Vanguard Group Inc., Fred Alger Management Inc. and Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership. View Insider Buying and Selling for Applied Materials.

Shares of Applied Materials can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages include Vanguard Brokerage Services, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Scottrade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.

One share of Applied Materials stock can currently be purchased for approximately $44.30.