NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) Trading 1.7% Higher on Analyst Upgrade

NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s stock price traded up 1.7% during trading on Thursday after Raymond James raised their price target on the stock from $140.00 to $170.00. Raymond James currently has a strong-buy rating on the stock. NVIDIA traded as high as $148.76 and last traded at $148.74. 63,283,031 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 84% from the average session volume of 399,671,313 shares. The stock had previously closed at $146.27.

A number of other brokerages have also weighed in on NVDA. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price target on shares of NVIDIA from $130.00 to $155.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. TD Cowen upgraded NVIDIA to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 16th. William Blair started coverage on NVIDIA in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on NVIDIA from $145.00 to $150.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, August 23rd. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of NVIDIA from $165.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 18th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-eight have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, NVIDIA currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $152.40.

Insider Buying and Selling at NVIDIA

In other NVIDIA news, CEO Jen Hsun Huang sold 120,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.03, for a total value of $14,283,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 76,494,995 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,105,199,254.85. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Jen Hsun Huang sold 120,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.03, for a total value of $14,283,600.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 76,494,995 shares in the company, valued at $9,105,199,254.85. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Tench Coxe sold 1,000,000 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.27, for a total value of $119,270,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 5,852,480 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $698,025,289.60. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 2,156,270 shares of company stock valued at $254,784,327. 4.23% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of NVIDIA

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in NVDA. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. boosted its stake in shares of NVIDIA by 897.5% in the 2nd quarter. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. now owns 119,110 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $14,715,000 after buying an additional 107,169 shares during the last quarter. Truepoint Inc. boosted its position in NVIDIA by 914.1% in the second quarter. Truepoint Inc. now owns 12,990 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $1,605,000 after purchasing an additional 11,709 shares during the last quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. increased its position in shares of NVIDIA by 683.9% during the 2nd quarter. Westwood Holdings Group Inc. now owns 238,829 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $29,505,000 after purchasing an additional 208,362 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in shares of NVIDIA by 884.0% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 213,127,959 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock valued at $26,329,751,000 after purchasing an additional 191,469,114 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe Ltd boosted its holdings in shares of NVIDIA by 1,106.0% in the 2nd quarter. Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe Ltd now owns 532,285 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $65,758,000 after buying an additional 488,148 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 65.27% of the company’s stock.

NVIDIA Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $3.65 trillion, a P/E ratio of 69.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.56 and a beta of 1.66. The company has a quick ratio of 3.79, a current ratio of 4.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15. The company’s 50-day moving average is $129.39 and its two-hundred day moving average is $119.51.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.64 by $0.04. NVIDIA had a net margin of 55.04% and a return on equity of 113.50%. The company had revenue of $30.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $28.74 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.25 EPS. NVIDIA’s revenue was up 122.4% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts predict that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.66 EPS for the current year.

NVIDIA Cuts Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 3rd. Investors of record on Thursday, September 12th were paid a $0.01 dividend. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 12th. NVIDIA’s dividend payout ratio is currently 1.88%.

NVIDIA declared that its board has approved a stock buyback program on Wednesday, August 28th that allows the company to repurchase $50.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the computer hardware maker to purchase up to 1.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

About NVIDIA

NVIDIA Corporation provides graphics and compute and networking solutions in the United States, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and internationally. The Graphics segment offers GeForce GPUs for gaming and PCs, the GeForce NOW game streaming service and related infrastructure, and solutions for gaming platforms; Quadro/NVIDIA RTX GPUs for enterprise workstation graphics; virtual GPU or vGPU software for cloud-based visual and virtual computing; automotive platforms for infotainment systems; and Omniverse software for building and operating metaverse and 3D internet applications.