The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Photronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLAB). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Technology company by 4.11% to 5.21 million shares with purchase of 0.21 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.32% valued currently at $110.02 million. In addition, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 48839.0 to 2.14 million shares. And LSV Asset Management has lifted its position by 88.34% or 0.73 million shares – to 1.56 million shares.
With over 0.45 million Photronics, Inc. (PLAB) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $31.26 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $13.96 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 35.56% and its price on 12/22/23 gained nearly 1.89%. Currently, there are 60.79M common shares owned by the public and among those 57.61M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 1 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for PLAB have a consensus price objective of $32.00. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $32.00 and a low of $32.00. The average price target is 2.31% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 2.31% over that period. But an upside of 2.31% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $32.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 26 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 11 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 355,000 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 15 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 81,266 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Photronics, Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and iShares Russell 2000 ETF. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 4.19 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $88.48 million. The company bought an additional 2268.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 6.70% of the shares outstanding. iShares Russell 2000 ETF bought 726.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.48 million shares at a value of $31.25 million. iShares Russell 2000 ETF now owns shares totaling to 2.36% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Photronics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLAB) opened at $30.98, up $0.3 from a prior closing price of $30.68. However, the script later moved the day high at 31.45, up 1.89%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 5.93% and 61.55% over the past three months. PLAB shares are trading 85.74% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 83.99% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $13.86 and touched a high of $30.98 over the same period. PLAB has an average intraday trading volume of 517.58K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 30.33%, 44.87%, and 50.88% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Photronics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLAB) shares accounts for 89.18% of the company’s 60.79M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 32.75%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 56.99% and 13.92% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1.96B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.39. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 15.39, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.03. The company has a PEG of 1.54 and a Quick Ratio of 3.97 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.03. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 4.55% over the week and 3.67% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Photronics, Inc. (PLAB) will achieve an EPS of $0.49 for the current quarter, $0.56 for the next quarter and $2.6 for 2025. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.49 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.49. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.23 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 12.75%, and 13.04% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 10.00% over the next five years, compared to 28.09% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 1 brokerage firm advisors rate Photronics, Inc. (PLAB) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.00. Specifically, 1 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 0 of the 1 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
