KLA - KLAC Stock Forecast, Price & News

KLA Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related nanoelectronics industries worldwide. The company offers chip and wafer manufacturing products, including defect inspection and review systems, metrology solutions, in situ process monitoring products, computational lithography software, and data analytics systems for chip manufacturers to manage yield throughout the semiconductor fabrication process. It also provides reticle manufacturing products, such as reticle inspection, metrology, and data analytics systems for mask shops; and packaging manufacturing products comprising wafer inspection and metrology, die sorting and inspection, IC component inspection and metrology, data analytics, wafer processing systems, and IC substrate production processes. In addition, the company offers compound semiconductor, power device, light emitting diode, and microelectromechanical system manufacturing products; data storage media/head manufacturing products; general purpose/lab applications; and previous-generation KLA systems. Further, it provides wafer processing solutions; printed circuit boards, and display and inspection components; and other services. The company was formerly known as KLA-Tencor Corporation and changed its name to KLA Corporation in July 2019. KLA Corporation was incorporated in 1975 and is headquartered in Milpitas, California.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

KLAC has been the subject of several analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of KLA from $400.00 to $375.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 15th. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on shares of KLA from $375.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Friday, July 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price target on KLA from $437.00 to $344.00 in a report on Friday, July 15th. UBS Group dropped their price objective on KLA from $360.00 to $345.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 28th. Finally, StockNews.com cut KLA from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 31st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $425.16.

KLA Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:KLAC opened at $380.73 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $53.99 billion, a PE ratio of 17.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 1.33. KLA has a 52 week low of $282.83 and a 52 week high of $457.12. The firm's fifty day moving average is $341.83 and its 200-day moving average is $346.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.76, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a current ratio of 2.50.

KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC - Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 28th. The semiconductor company reported $5.81 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $5.46 by $0.35. The company had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.42 billion. KLA had a return on equity of 95.80% and a net margin of 36.06%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 29.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $4.43 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that KLA will post 24.83 earnings per share for the current year.

KLA Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 1st. Investors of record on Monday, August 15th will be paid a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 12th. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.37%. This is a boost from KLA's previous quarterly dividend of $1.05. KLA's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.74%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other KLA news, CFO Bren D. Higgins sold 1,020 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $337.02, for a total value of $343,760.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 64,257 shares in the company, valued at $21,655,894.14. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other KLA news, EVP Brian Lorig sold 351 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $383.71, for a total value of $134,682.21. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 29,726 shares of the company's stock, valued at $11,406,163.46. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Bren D. Higgins sold 1,020 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $337.02, for a total transaction of $343,760.40. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 64,257 shares of the company's stock, valued at $21,655,894.14. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 8,045 shares of company stock worth $3,025,459. 0.14% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.