Retirement Systems of Alabama Buys 249,966 Shares of Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX)

Retirement Systems of Alabama lifted its stake in Lam Research Co. (NASDAQ:LRCX) by 873.6% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 278,579 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after purchasing an additional 249,966 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabama’s holdings in Lam Research were worth $20,122,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Cypress Capital Group raised its position in shares of Lam Research by 3.7% in the third quarter. Cypress Capital Group now owns 3,660 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $2,987,000 after buying an additional 132 shares during the last quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in Lam Research by 58.3% in the 3rd quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc. now owns 364 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $297,000 after acquiring an additional 134 shares during the last quarter. West Oak Capital LLC lifted its stake in Lam Research by 50.9% in the 4th quarter. West Oak Capital LLC now owns 400 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 135 shares in the last quarter. Baldwin Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Lam Research by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter. Baldwin Investment Management LLC now owns 10,249 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $8,364,000 after purchasing an additional 137 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling LLC grew its position in shares of Lam Research by 10.1% in the third quarter. Bedell Frazier Investment Counselling LLC now owns 1,559 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,272,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 84.61% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have weighed in on LRCX. Barclays lowered their price objective on Lam Research from $90.00 to $75.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 17th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Lam Research from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $85.00 to $91.00 in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $100.00 target price (down from $105.00) on shares of Lam Research in a research note on Thursday, October 24th. StockNews.com cut shares of Lam Research from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Lam Research from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Lam Research presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $95.72.

Lam Research Stock Up 1.1 %

Lam Research stock opened at $82.83 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $106.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.16, a P/E/G ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a current ratio of 2.54, a quick ratio of 1.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51. Lam Research Co. has a twelve month low of $68.87 and a twelve month high of $113.00. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $76.53 and its 200-day simple moving average is $78.26.

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The semiconductor company reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Lam Research had a return on equity of 51.86% and a net margin of 26.49%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Lam Research Co. will post 3.69 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Lam Research Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 9th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.23 per share. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.11%. Lam Research’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.95%.

About Lam Research

Lam Research Corporation designs, manufactures, markets, refurbishes, and services semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The company offers ALTUS systems to deposit conformal films for tungsten metallization applications; SABRE electrochemical deposition products for copper interconnect transition that offers copper damascene manufacturing; SOLA ultraviolet thermal processing products for film treatments; and VECTOR plasma-enhanced CVD ALD products.