Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) Shares Up 4.9% Following Analyst Upgrade

Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) rose 4.9% during trading on Tuesday after Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on the stock from $140.00 to $165.00. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a buy rating on the stock. Micron Technology traded as high as $157.54 and last traded at $155.11. Approximately 19,651,879 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 3% from the average daily volume of 19,045,799 shares. The stock had previously closed at $147.83.

A number of other brokerages have also commented on MU. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and set a $140.00 price objective on shares of Micron Technology in a report on Monday, March 18th. Barclays increased their target price on Micron Technology from $120.00 to $145.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, May 13th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Micron Technology from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their target price for the company from $115.00 to $150.00 in a research note on Monday, May 6th. StockNews.com upgraded Micron Technology from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on Micron Technology from $144.00 to $170.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-five have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $137.92.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra sold 7,000 shares of Micron Technology stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.57, for a total transaction of $941,990.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 719,049 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $96,762,423.93. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra sold 7,000 shares of Micron Technology stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.57, for a total transaction of $941,990.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 719,049 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $96,762,423.93. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP April S. Arnzen sold 4,890 shares of Micron Technology stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.30, for a total value of $583,377.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 148,817 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,753,868.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 365,446 shares of company stock valued at $43,826,633. Company insiders own 0.32% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. DecisionPoint Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Micron Technology in the first quarter valued at about $25,000. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Micron Technology by 230.7% in the first quarter. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 248 shares of the semiconductor manufacturer’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 173 shares in the last quarter. Tidemark LLC bought a new stake in shares of Micron Technology in the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. Pingora Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Micron Technology in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Finally, Riverview Trust Co bought a new stake in shares of Micron Technology in the first quarter valued at about $39,000. 80.84% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Micron Technology Trading Up 4.9 %

The company has a market capitalization of $171.76 billion, a P/E ratio of -44.96 and a beta of 1.21. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $123.99 and a 200 day moving average price of $102.27. The company has a quick ratio of 2.40, a current ratio of 3.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30.

Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, March 20th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $0.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.27) by $0.69. The business had revenue of $5.82 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.35 billion. Micron Technology had a negative return on equity of 8.98% and a negative net margin of 20.57%. Micron Technology’s quarterly revenue was up 57.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned ($2.03) earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Micron Technology, Inc. will post 0.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Micron Technology Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 16th. Investors of record on Monday, April 1st were given a $0.115 dividend. This represents a $0.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.30%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 28th. Micron Technology’s dividend payout ratio is currently -13.33%.

Micron Technology Company Profile

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.