NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) Trading Up 3.1% After Analyst Upgrade

Shares of NVIDIA Co. (NASDAQ:NVDA) shot up 3.1% during mid-day trading on Friday after Barclays raised their price target on the stock from $160.00 to $175.00. Barclays currently has an overweight rating on the stock. NVIDIA traded as high as $138.06 and last traded at $137.67. 81,932,691 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 61% from the average session volume of 212,641,594 shares. The stock had previously closed at $133.57.

NVDA has been the subject of several other research reports. Truist Financial upped their price target on shares of NVIDIA from $148.00 to $167.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and set a $220.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on NVIDIA from $150.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $175.00 price target on shares of NVIDIA in a report on Thursday, November 21st. Finally, Bank of America reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $190.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-nine have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, NVIDIA presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $164.63.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other NVIDIA news, Director Tench Coxe sold 1,000,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $131.26, for a total value of $131,260,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 28,671,360 shares in the company, valued at $3,763,402,713.60. This represents a 3.37 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Ajay K. Puri sold 36,462 shares of NVIDIA stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.10, for a total transaction of $5,509,408.20. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 3,902,888 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $589,726,376.80. This represents a 0.93 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 1,108,348 shares of company stock valued at $146,506,958. Insiders own 4.23% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Quest Partners LLC purchased a new stake in NVIDIA in the second quarter worth about $27,000. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc bought a new position in shares of NVIDIA during the third quarter valued at approximately $27,000. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. purchased a new position in NVIDIA during the second quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Legend Financial Advisors Inc. bought a new position in NVIDIA in the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in NVIDIA during the third quarter worth $36,000. 65.27% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

NVIDIA Price Performance

The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $139.18 and a 200-day simple moving average of $128.90. The firm has a market cap of $3.37 trillion, a P/E ratio of 54.20, a PEG ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 1.64. The company has a current ratio of 4.10, a quick ratio of 3.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 20th. The computer hardware maker reported $0.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.69 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $35.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.15 billion. NVIDIA had a return on equity of 114.83% and a net margin of 55.69%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 93.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.38 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that NVIDIA Co. will post 2.78 EPS for the current year.

NVIDIA Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 27th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 5th were given a dividend of $0.01 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 5th. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.03%. NVIDIA’s payout ratio is 1.57%.

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.