Kovack Advisors Inc. Buys Shares of 24,400 Photronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLAB)

Kovack Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Photronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLAB) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 24,400 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $575,000.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Creative Planning purchased a new stake in shares of Photronics in the 3rd quarter worth $250,000. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Photronics by 65.4% in the 3rd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 1,434 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 567 shares in the last quarter. US Bancorp DE increased its stake in shares of Photronics by 137.2% in the 3rd quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 1,212 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 701 shares in the last quarter. EMC Capital Management increased its stake in shares of Photronics by 45.0% in the 3rd quarter. EMC Capital Management now owns 16,053 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $397,000 after purchasing an additional 4,984 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Photronics by 21.9% in the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 5,930 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $147,000 after purchasing an additional 1,066 shares in the last quarter. 88.38% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Photronics news, CEO Kang Jyh Lee sold 8,750 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.40, for a total transaction of $213,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 572,100 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,959,240. This represents a 1.51 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Adam M. Lewis sold 19,750 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.11, for a total transaction of $476,172.50. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 22,250 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $536,447.50. This trade represents a 47.02 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 199,000 shares of company stock worth $4,878,810. Corporate insiders own 3.20% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, DA Davidson upped their price objective on Photronics from $32.00 to $35.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th.

Photronics Stock Performance

Shares of PLAB stock opened at $20.84 on Friday. Photronics, Inc. has a 52-week low of $20.25 and a 52-week high of $31.60. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.32 billion, a PE ratio of 9.97 and a beta of 1.37. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $23.11 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $23.84.

Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The semiconductor company reported $0.52 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.05. Photronics had a return on equity of 9.10% and a net margin of 15.07%. The business had revenue of $212.14 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $210.00 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.48 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Photronics, Inc. will post 2.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Photronics

Photronics, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of photomask products and services in the United States, Taiwan, China, Korea, Europe, and internationally. It offers photomasks that are used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and flat panel displays (FPDs); and to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers, and FDP substrates.