Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) Shares Up 1.9% – Here’s Why

Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) shot up 1.9% on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $101.48 and last traded at $100.00. 5,358,540 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 75% from the average session volume of 21,255,873 shares. The stock had previously closed at $98.10.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MU has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on shares of Micron Technology from $165.00 to $135.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 19th. Citigroup decreased their price target on shares of Micron Technology from $175.00 to $150.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. KeyCorp decreased their price target on shares of Micron Technology from $145.00 to $135.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 8th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Micron Technology from an “outperform” rating to an “underperform” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $140.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Micron Technology from $100.00 to $114.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and twenty-six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Micron Technology has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $143.04.

Micron Technology Stock Performance

The firm has a market cap of $113.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 147.06 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a current ratio of 2.64, a quick ratio of 1.68 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $103.60 and its 200-day simple moving average is $110.01.

Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, September 25th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $1.18 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.97 by $0.21. The firm had revenue of $7.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.65 billion. Micron Technology had a net margin of 3.10% and a return on equity of 1.58%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 93.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted ($1.21) EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Micron Technology, Inc. will post 8.31 earnings per share for the current year.

Micron Technology Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, October 7th were paid a dividend of $0.115 per share. This represents a $0.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, October 7th. Micron Technology’s dividend payout ratio is 67.65%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP April S. Arnzen sold 4,890 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.00, for a total value of $552,570.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 135,830 shares in the company, valued at $15,348,790. This trade represents a 3.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 0.30% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Micron Technology

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Micron Technology by 3.1% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 48,226,710 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock valued at $5,001,592,000 after acquiring an additional 1,434,568 shares during the period. Primecap Management Co. CA raised its holdings in Micron Technology by 0.6% during the third quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 37,631,860 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock valued at $3,902,800,000 after acquiring an additional 206,499 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Micron Technology by 3.9% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 23,723,545 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock valued at $2,451,987,000 after acquiring an additional 892,607 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its holdings in Micron Technology by 21.7% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,326,224 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock valued at $1,174,643,000 after acquiring an additional 2,022,180 shares during the period. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in shares of Micron Technology by 30.6% in the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 10,564,198 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock worth $1,109,769,000 after purchasing an additional 2,477,985 shares during the last quarter. 80.84% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Micron Technology

Micron Technology, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and sells memory and storage products worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Compute and Networking Business Unit, Mobile Business Unit, Embedded Business Unit, and Storage Business Unit. It provides memory and storage technologies comprising dynamic random access memory semiconductor devices with low latency that provide high-speed data retrieval; non-volatile and re-writeable semiconductor storage devices; and non-volatile re-writable semiconductor memory devices that provide fast read speeds under the Micron and Crucial brands, as well as through private labels.