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.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

KLAC has been the subject of several research reports. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of KLA from $373.00 to $377.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Monday, July 25th. Bank of America decreased their price target on shares of KLA from $430.00 to $410.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, June 29th. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of KLA from $365.00 to $325.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 25th. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on shares of KLA from $385.00 to $352.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 26th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their price target on shares of KLA from $425.00 to $385.00 in a research note on Monday, July 18th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $425.16.

KLA Stock Performance

KLA stock traded up $8.45 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $381.20. 1,135,399 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,474,484. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $341.02 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $346.76. KLA has a fifty-two week low of $282.83 and a fifty-two week high of $457.12. The stock has a market cap of $54.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 1.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.76, a current ratio of 2.50 and a quick ratio of 1.75.

KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC - Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 28th. The semiconductor company reported $5.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.46 by $0.35. KLA had a return on equity of 95.80% and a net margin of 36.06%. The business had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.42 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $4.43 EPS. The company's quarterly revenue was up 29.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that KLA will post 24.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

KLA Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 15th will be issued a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 12th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.36%. This is an increase from KLA's previous quarterly dividend of $1.05. KLA's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 19.18%.

Insider Transactions at KLA

In other news, EVP Brian Lorig sold 255 shares of KLA stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $375.00, for a total transaction of $95,625.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 32,906 shares of the company's stock, valued at $12,339,750. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, EVP Brian Lorig sold 255 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $375.00, for a total value of $95,625.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 32,906 shares in the company, valued at $12,339,750. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Bren D. Higgins sold 5,330 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $383.11, for a total value of $2,041,976.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 52,145 shares in the company, valued at approximately $19,977,270.95. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 8,045 shares of company stock valued at $3,025,459. 0.16% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.