J. Stern & Co. LLP Purchases New Shares in ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML)

J. Stern & Co. LLP acquired a new position in shares of ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 62 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $52,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV increased its position in shares of ASML by 4,379.6% during the second quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 889,875 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $910,102,000 after acquiring an additional 870,010 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its stake in ASML by 94,079.7% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 491,618 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $4,096,410,000 after purchasing an additional 491,096 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its position in shares of ASML by 37.0% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,757,049 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,464,061,000 after purchasing an additional 474,653 shares during the last quarter. Tairen Capital Ltd raised its stake in shares of ASML by 321.2% during the 2nd quarter. Tairen Capital Ltd now owns 202,946 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $207,559,000 after purchasing an additional 154,760 shares during the period. Finally, Mediolanum International Funds Ltd purchased a new position in shares of ASML in the 3rd quarter worth about $125,952,000. Institutional investors own 26.07% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on ASML. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered their price objective on shares of ASML from $1,052.00 to $815.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of ASML from $1,207.00 to $1,148.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Morgan Stanley lowered ASML from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Berenberg Bank upgraded ASML to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, UBS Group downgraded ASML from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $970.60.

ASML Price Performance

NASDAQ ASML traded down $7.91 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $676.56. The company had a trading volume of 140,533 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,445,090. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $742.55 and a 200 day simple moving average of $871.93. ASML Holding has a 52 week low of $645.45 and a 52 week high of $1,110.09. The firm has a market capitalization of $266.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.84, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 1.55.

ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 15th. The semiconductor company reported $5.80 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.24 by $0.56. ASML had a net margin of 26.40% and a return on equity of 47.61%. The company had revenue of $8.21 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $7.66 billion. Equities research analysts expect that ASML Holding will post 20.68 earnings per share for the current year.

ASML Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 7th. Investors of record on Tuesday, October 29th were given a dividend of $1.407 per share. This represents a $5.63 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.83%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, October 29th. ASML’s payout ratio is 29.21%.

About ASML

ASML Holding N.V. develops, produces, markets, sells, and services advanced semiconductor equipment systems for chipmakers. It offers advanced semiconductor equipment systems, including lithography, metrology, and inspection systems. The company also provides extreme ultraviolet lithography systems; and deep ultraviolet lithography systems comprising immersion and dry lithography solutions to manufacture various range of semiconductor nodes and technologies.